How Often Do You Request a New Credit Card Number?

One issue that you must ask yourself about as you use your credit cards is: how often do I request a new credit card number?  The reason that you should ask this is because this should be a part of your overall strategy to help keep yourself from becoming a victim of credit card fraud.  Keep in mind that you are not asking to close your account, just that a new number be assigned to it and the old one deleted.
This should be one strategy in your arsenal of keeping yourself free from fraud and abuse.  Here’s why:
Be a Moving Target.  One of the most effective ways of protecting yourself from becoming a victim is to become a moving target.  This means to change your card number (actual credit card number) often.  How often is a matter of debate, but the question to ask yourself in this discussion is: how often would you feel it would take to make you more comfortable with your security?
For some this might be once per year.  For others, every six months seems right.  And still others, every three months will provide them the comfort that feels right.  A monthly change does seem a little excessive considering that it takes about a week or so to get your new card.  If you did that, then you would not have access to your card and account for a few days (which might not be a bad thing), but it will pose an inconvenience to you in making normal transactions.
Plus, when you change card numbers you might just have some changes to make if you use your card for recurring transactions because you then have to notify those businesses of the change so that when the time comes for an automatic charge, you are not left with an unpaid bill, which could result in late charges with that merchant.
So, it would appear that a three month frequency in change in number might be the shortest duration that you should take.  Even if you choose once per year, you are at least making a positive change to help keep you from becoming a victim.

Other Security Considerations.  Not only should you get a new card often, you should protect yourself in other ways, too.  For example, you should change your password often on your credit card Internet logon.  And this should be performed on a regular basis, too.  Since this is not as big of a deal as getting a new credit card number is, then you might be wise in changing this on a monthly basis. But a better idea would be to tie it in with a change in your credit card number.  Every time you get a credit card number change, then make a change in your password as well.

When a Credit Card Number Prints on Your Receipts.  There is actually a law against printing your full credit card number on a receipt that a merchant prints out as verification of your transaction.  But then, best advice here is to just request a new card number and be done with it.  While they could be held liable, it probably is not worth the time and effort to make that happen.  Plus the judgment is only around $1,000 per infraction; so again, it is not worth the hassle.

Take this advice and make your credit card numbers a moving target for would be thieves.  As any victim will tell you, this is a small price to pay compared to the time and effort that it takes to handle fraudulent uses of your cards is concerned.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Credit Card Advice, Credit Card Use, Financial Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.