Your Monthly Credit Card Statements Are Not Junk Mail

Sure we all get a ton of junk in the mail each day and can get overloaded with paper and bills and statements but it is now more than ever really important that you don’t trash what’s important. When you get your monthly credit card bill in the mail each month, do you just throw it on the file pile? If you do, you really should rethink your strategy; otherwise it could cost you big time.

Credit cards are handed around so much. We give them to waiters at restaurants, cashiers at the grocery store, and enter our private information into online shopping carts. Because of all the credit activity consumers have going on each day, your responsibility to yourself should be to make sure you are not an ideal victim of fraud. Your credit card statement may be the first clue that something is amiss and it is up to you to check it out.

Analyze Your Statements With a Fine-Toothed Comb
When you open your monthly statement, take some time out of your day to really look at the charges. Keep receipts so you can match up what you’ve spent over the course of the month and don’t rely on memory to get it right. Con artists are experts at seeming un-obvious. They will not always rack up thousands of dollars in purchases at a time. Instead, they may make several smaller purchases and wait to see if you catch on. If you are not reading your statement line by line, they may get you in a lot of financial trouble.

Open All Correspondence from Creditors
Even if it looks like junk, open it up and look at it. Credit card companies like to send out changes in the original terms and conditions and if you don’t “opt out” in a certain period of time, you can get hit with charges, reductions in credit limits, or a rise in interest rates and not even know it until you can no longer afford the bill.

Dispute Mistakes Immediately
If you are reading your statement and come across charges that are not yours, contact your creditor immediately. Many times you will not be responsible for the entire amount if you file a timely dispute. If you are not looking at your statements regularly, you will not know what is wrong until it is too late.

Hang On To Your Information
Keep a file of all of your statements in case you ever need to review them. You’ll know exactly where they are and be able to take care of business right away. Credit card companies are making many subtle changes too and you want to be able to compare statements from month to month.

Electronic Statements Are Okay But…
A paper statement is much easier to read than one on the screen. Keep your online account active though so that you can check on your account whenever you need to and also to make on time payments each month if the creditor’s website allows for payments.

While it may be a pain to have to read and store a lot of statements each month, the time and effort it takes to get out of a mess after being victimized by a scam artist is ten times worse than regular organization and statement maintenance. Keeping tabs on your account at all times will help ensure you are protected. Don’t assume your credit card company will be concerned with your security until after something happens to you. Reversing fraud is much harder than being proactive about your credit in the first place.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 5:01 am 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.