A 2nd credit card for travel is a must because of skimming scams

Are you aware of the dangers when using your credit card during travel? There many scams that you can easily take steps to avoid a lot of trouble and headaches.

When I travel overseas I Iove the convenience of paying things with my credit card as I don’t have to carry so much cash around or look for an ATM all the time.  Carrying a lot of cash also means you are at risk to pick pockets because if your wallet gets picked there goes all your money, if your credit card is gone then it’s not such a big deal because it’s more difficult for the thief to use it and by that time you can quickly contact your provider and they will cancel the card immediately.

So using credit is a lot better than cash right? However recently after coming back from Thailand I received a call from the Commonwealth bank credit card department stating that they had reason to believe that my credit card had been ‘skimmed’ and will probably be sold off in list of other ‘skimmed’ cards for fraudulent activity so I should cancel my card immediately, the choice was mine.

What is skimming? It means when you have used your card to make a purchase the person that serviced you has swiped your card twice, one into the legit machine and another into a machine that copies your card info and stores it. Having this information means they are able to use it however they or someone else pleases.

When Commonwealth rang I thought now that sounds really dodgy however if I cancel it that means all my current automatic debit transactions for bills, finance plans and other things will be cancelled also and I’ll have to fix them all up again, what a headache! I had no choice really, the risk was too great and I had it cancelled. I spent the next few weeks trying to change all my auto debits to the new card, that was really annoying and a waste of time.

This type of thing can happen in Australia too however it is rare. So the next time you plan trip get second credit card only to be used for travel, this way if something dodgy does happen you can easily cancel it and you won’t have the hassle of trying to setup all your auto debits again! I suggest you get a no annual fee credit card because  you don’t want to be paying the annual fee on top of you travel costs.

(0) Comments Permalink