4 Moves You Need to Make Immediately After Your Credit Card Is Hacked

January 4, 2015 – 10:02 AM

If you paid for the bulk of your holiday shopping with plastic, you may not be looking forward to your first statement of the new year but you can’t afford not to. The holidays are prime time for identity thieves who want to get their hands on your personal information, as two MyBankTracker staffers recently found out.

In one instance, it was a credit card that was compromised and in the other, a prepaid card. In both cases, it’s led to a number of headaches, including new credit cards opened and a slew of fraudulent charges, as they try to sort out the mess created by hackers. If you’ve ever been a victim of credit or debit card fraud, you probably have an idea what I’m talking about.

For one thing, there’s the hassle of getting a new card. Credit card companies will usually overnight it for free but your bank might be a different matter. You could end up paying anywhere from $15 to $20 if you need the card by the next day. You’ve also got to go through the trouble of switching over any automatic bill payments linked to the account and updating the card number through PayPal, eBay or anywhere else you have it stored online.

Once that’s done, you’re stuck worrying about whether your information is really safe. Keeping an eye on your accounts and checking your credit reports is a must but those online monitoring services usually come with a pretty decent monthly fee. The good news is, there are some ways to track your credit or debit card activity that won’t cost you a dime. If your credit card got hacked over the holidays or you’re just paranoid about it happening in the future, here’s what you can do to keep an eye on your credit for free.

Source:
http://www.mybanktracker.com/news/credit-card-hacked