Ways To Protect Debit Cards From Fraud

A lot of people are concerned about their debit card and whether it can be misused or not. You can protect your debit card against fraud in a number of ways, and this article will show you how.

Traditionally, fraud protection for a debit card has used a signature system. When a customer would make a purchase using their debit card, the cashier would check the signature on the card against me signature presented on the receipt to make sure there was a match.

Fraud protection for your debit card

Checking a signature on a debit card has always had its drawbacks. If somebody stole a card they could practice the signature until they got it close enough to the original to use. Also, many cashiers would hesitate to challenge the signature since it could be a form of embarrassment, and could hold up a line when there were lot of people waiting at the cash.

Recently a new technology has been put into place to tighten up debit card protection even more. This new chip technology has been used in France and the UK during the last few years with great success. Some types of fraud have been reduced about 80%, which is a great step forward in debit card fraud protection, and it is being introduced in Australia as well.

There are other programs in place to help with fraud protection such as Verified by Visa, which allows the cardholder to enter a password when making an online transaction with their debit card for further security. During the online transaction the purchaser is sent to another site that is owned by the bank that issued the card, to enter their password.

Online transactions have become more secure in general over the years since card issuers have become increasingly concerned about online protection. There has been a general tightening up on Internet payments and who is allowed to accept debit cards online.

Issuers have also started replacing debit cards frequently so that by the time a thief gets a card it becomes outdated and impossible to use.

Both Visa and MasterCard offer a zero liability guarantee for any fraud that happens on one of their debit cards. As long as certain steps have been followed to report the incident, and the cardholder has had nothing to do with it at all, the cardholder will not be held liable.<

Using a debit card has never been safer, and with good common sense you can use your card online, at retail stores and for phone banking. Extra fraud protection is making its way to Australia, so you can feel safer than you ever have before when using your debit card.