Many individuals are beginning to wonder if credit card purchases are a good idea. Several different major retailers have had a large amount of card data stolen in the last year alone, and it’s making people wonder if this is really the best way of handling their money. While fraud is certainly a problem, there are still good reasons for using credit cards in Altoona, PA for making a wide variety of purchases.
The protection that you get with credit card use is actually extremely good. By law, the cardholder’s liability can’t be more than $50 if the card is stolen, so long as any fraudulent charges are reported within 60 days. In practice, most companies don’t require the customer to pay anything at all in this situation, as they simply remove the fraudulent charges from the account. In the event that the card information is stolen, rather than the card itself, the cardholder has no liability at all. Put together, this means that having someone steal your card is certainly inconvenient, but it’s not financially crippling in the way that it would be if they stole a large amount of cash.
There are also additional security measures available that you can use to make your purchases as safe as possible. For credit cards in Altoona, PA, it is often possible to use Verified by Visa service as a part of an online purchase. This is a special mechanism that allows you to require that you specifically authorize charges with the credit card company before they go through, by simply providing an extra password. Where this is used, even a person who has the card itself would not be able to make a fraudulent online charge unless he had the password as well.
Using a card to make a purchase still offers all of the convenience that it ever has. The bills even offer a simple way for you to keep track of your spending and where it is going. If you don’t have a card yet and want to get one, or you just need to add a new card to what you have available, click here to learn more about your options.
