Online Holiday shopping and Cyber Security

[Liz CA]

Are you doing anything different than in the past?

Do you have any great suggestions that worked well? As much as I complain about the lack of security, I am pretty lazy when I want to quickly order something. But last year, it took me nearly two month to clear a fraudulent charge on my checking account when someone charged a computer game to my ATM card.

 

Is paying with a credit card instead of debit card attached to your account the best thing?

Open up some small checking account and drop a set amount into it and use only a card associated with that account?

 

[Guest]

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Edited September 11, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[ktgrok]

 

 

Is paying with a credit card instead of debit card attached to your account the best thing?

Open up some small checking account and drop a set amount into it and use only a card associated with that account?

 

My husband's degree is in cyber security, that's his job. We've done both of the above. The credit card is WAY easier, but we noticed it made our credit rating fluctuate wildly based on how much of our credit we were using at any given time. And we're working on repairing our credit, so that wasn't good for our situation. So now we do the small checking account thing, which he calls our "firewall" account. It is the ONLY card we use, both online and at local stores. We just constantly transfer money into it, every few days, which is a pain, but less of a pain than having your main account cleaned out by hackers. 

 

If credit rating isn't a huge issue right now (Like you aren't applying for loans or whatever right now) then just use the credit card. Super easy. And if there are fraudulent charges you just don't pay them, and the card company deals with it. 

 

Edited to add: The reason it was an issue for our credit is that we are checking it constantly via credit karma, and the score was going up and down as the card built up and got paid off, which was making it hard to see what actual progress we were making on improving our credit. 

Edited November 6, 2016 by ktgrok

[Liz CA]

My husband's degree is in cyber security, that's his job. We've done both of the above. The credit card is WAY easier, but we noticed it made our credit rating fluctuate wildly based on how much of our credit we were using at any given time. And we're working on repairing our credit, so that wasn't good for our situation. So now we do the small checking account thing, which he calls our "firewall" account. It is the ONLY card we use, both online and at local stores. We just constantly transfer money into it, every few days, which is a pain, but less of a pain than having your main account cleaned out by hackers. 

 

If credit rating isn't a huge issue right now (Like you aren't applying for loans or whatever right now) then just use the credit card. Super easy. And if there are fraudulent charges you just don't pay them, and the card company deals with it. 

 

Edited to add: The reason it was an issue for our credit is that we are checking it constantly via credit karma, and the score was going up and down as the card built up and got paid off, which was making it hard to see what actual progress we were making on improving our credit. 

 

I was hoping you would respond since I remembered your dh was in the field.

If I order a few things on the credit card and pay the amount off within days - via electronic payment set up linked to checking account - I don't think it should affect my credit rating unless I charged close to the limit.

I am not planning on huge purchases nor taking out a loan in the foreseeable future.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Liz CA

[Liz CA]

Just use a credit card and pay it off at the end of each month. The credit cards are secured and they deal with it if someone steals it. I would never in a million years use a bank card or enter my checking info online. Also- never use an ATM/bank card to pay at a restaurant. That's one of the number one places to have your info stolen.

 

I am a little stuck in the past or was...the mindset you use the credit card when you NEED to as in checking account is tight. So I paid with ATM everywhere until someone at my credit union alerted me to the fact that frequent card number theft occurs at gas stations. We don't go to restaurants much but will remember to use CC now when we do go.

[cjzimmer1]

I've never used a debit card online nor would ever consider doing that.  Far too risky in my my opinion.  Always use a credit card because it provides an extra layer of protection.  As far as online shopping.  I always remove my credit information once the transaction has gone through.  That way even if someone hacks my account, they can't order anything from it without providing their own payment information. Yes sometimes it's a pain to reenter my credit card number every time but still worth it.

[nd293]

I almost exclusively use PayPal. If that's not available I do a combination of what's been mentioned: I never save my credit card details to the store, but type it in each time. I do use my visa debit, but most funds are in another account.

[TheReader]

One additional thing we have done is to go into our credit card account and set it up so that we get instant text or email alerts for any online purchase, and any purchase over a set amount. If you are very worried about it, you could do that and it at least gives you immediate notice of anything suspicious.

 

Like others have said, we only use an actual credit card, never the ATM/Debit card, then we pay that off each month.

[Lanny]

In general, I believe paying with a Credit Card is safer than paying with a Debit card, for a number of reasons.    We pay for more things now with PayPal.  I am buying more things on eBay now than on Amazon. I always try to buy from reputable online sellers. That seems to be easier to do on eBay then on Amazon, unless one is buying directly from Amazon.  (that excludes the textbooks I buy for DD which are usually purchased from Amazon Marketplace Sellers and I have a pretty good idea about who I am buying from)

 

NOTE: Each web site that you have an account for must have a different password. The password should have a minimum of 10 characters, which include: upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.  I use the Free version of "LastPass" to remember my passwords.  I have a "Pass phrase" to get into my "LastPass" account.  

[bettyandbob]

I only use credit card and pay it off every month.

[Guest]

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Edited September 11, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[Liz CA]

In general, I believe paying with a Credit Card is safer than paying with a Debit card, for a number of reasons.    We pay for more things now with PayPal.  I am buying more things on eBay now than on Amazon. I always try to buy from reputable online sellers. That seems to be easier to do on eBay then on Amazon, unless one is buying directly from Amazon.  (that excludes the textbooks I buy for DD which are usually purchased from Amazon Marketplace Sellers and I have a pretty good idea about who I am buying from)

 

NOTE: Each web site that you have an account for must have a different password. The password should have a minimum of 10 characters, which include: upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.  I use the Free version of "LastPass" to remember my passwords.  I have a "Pass phrase" to get into my "LastPass" account.  

 

Uuuugghh. The password issue is another thing I have to work on. I use the same letters and vary the number  - I always use a number with the letters but many of my accounts have the same letter sequence but different numbers. This is probably not good enough.

The tech that used to work on our office computers suggested changing passwords every six months. I don't do that either.

:leaving:

 

[ktgrok]

Uuuugghh. The password issue is another thing I have to work on. I use the same letters and vary the number  - I always use a number with the letters but many of my accounts have the same letter sequence but different numbers. This is probably not good enough.

The tech that used to work on our office computers suggested changing passwords every six months. I don't do that either.

:leaving:

 

 

If it helps, my husband doesn't either. But he advises using a whole phrase, or the first letters of each word in a phrase. Plus a number and symbol. Easier to remember a whole phrase than random letters/numbers and harder to crack than something short and easy. I use the first letters of a song lyric phrase. 

SaveSave

[lynn]

I never understood using a debit card which is directly connected to your bank account and if stolen that money is gone and you may have able to pay bills until everything is verified. Where as a credit card gets stolen you are not out money, you just call the bank and let them know that you did not make xzy charge or dispute an over charge or stop a payment for a service that does not go right. We use our credit card, never debit and if we feel it's been compromised we call the bank and get issued a new one.

[mamiof5]

I use my cc everywhere. It has gotten stolen several times, but the bank deals with it. No way I'd use my debit card.

[TravelingChris]

I know that theoretically a bank can have you pay the first 50 dollars of a fraudulent bill but we never have paid that when we had fraudulent charges.  I haven't had any problems with my debit/credit card.  I will be using my Amazon credit card at least some of the time just to get amazon credit and we do use the Amex when travelling or for travel and get credit that way too.  But my bank is good and when we did have a stolen card, it reversed the charges immediately and we didn't have to pay anything.  Oh and the credit card was skimmed in a store and then used in a Walmart about 60 miles away.  I have had no problem at all with internet sales.

[Guest]

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Edited September 10, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[Lanny]

Uuuugghh. The password issue is another thing I have to work on. I use the same letters and vary the number  - I always use a number with the letters but many of my accounts have the same letter sequence but different numbers. This is probably not good enough.

The tech that used to work on our office computers suggested changing passwords every six months. I don't do that either.

:leaving:

 

 

What you are using for Passwords is extremely risky.  I have seen an "Extra" on TV, when viewers in the USA are getting commercials.  A cybersecurity guru.  I think he said with the current technology, a password with 7 characters can be broken in 3 or 4 seconds. A password as I described, would take about 5 1/2 years.  As the technology improves, it will be easier to crack the password he suggested, but it is far stronger than what you are doing.

 

Check out the Free version of LastPass.  It has made my life easier and it saves me time.

https://www.lastpass.com/

If your needs are more complex, they have a variety of different versions of LastPass

[EmseB]

Another for LastPass.

 

Also, always use the longest possible password the site allows.  The characters don't matter as much as the length of the password (as long as you are not using something like "password123" or "123456789").  You know a site has a good cyber security person because they will allow long passwords.

[Arcadia]

If I order a few things on the credit card and pay the amount off within days - via electronic payment set up linked to checking account - I don't think it should affect my credit rating unless I charged close to the limit.

The unofficial guideline we were told is use up to 1/3 of your total credit limit. So if the credit limit of all your credit cards is $21k, then going over $7k often won't be advisable but slightly higher a few times a year for vacations and Black Friday and Christmas shopping is a non issue.

 

We had maxed out an AMEX for airfare to fly back to Asia. Didn't affect our credit score, since we look at refinancing our mortgage due to low interest rates after that trip, so our credit score was ran by the bank.

[Liz CA]

About LastPass...it remembers your passwords for various sites or how does it work?