Personal Finance

The top 5 ways you can prevent your credit card from getting stolen or hacked

Marc Guberti

Published: January 13, 2025 9:37 am

Credit cards are valuable financial resources that allow people to borrow money and receive rewards. These cards also allow you to build credit and enable more secure purchases than debit cards or cash purchases.

However, credit cards aren’t entirely safe. They’re still vulnerable to scams, as this Redditor highlights in a Scams subreddit post. The Redditor’s debit and credit cards were hacked at the same time. While the issue is now resolved, the Redditor asked other users how they can keep their credit card safer in the future. This post will highlight some of the top ways you can keep your credit card safe.

Never Use Your Debit Card for Purchases

Many Redditors pointed out that you shouldn’t be using a debit card in the first place. Debit card transactions are less secure, and they’re tied to your bank account. That means a hacker can rack up overdraft fees on your balance while putting you deep in the negative. 

Furthermore, credit cards have better consumer protection laws that make it more likely to receive a refund from fraudulent transactions. It can take a while to receive a refund from either card. However, the difference is that a credit card uses your credit line, while a debit card uses your savings. If a hacker gets your debit card information and blows through the savings, it will be much more difficult to cover your bills compared to a credit card hack.

Use a Virtual Credit Card

There is a chance that a physical credit card gets lost. It can fall out of your wallet, or you can end up losing your wallet.A physical copy creates additional headaches that you can solve with a virtual credit card.

Apple Wallet and Google Wallet make it easy to store your credit card information on your smartphone. You can thenshow your smartphone when you want to make payments instead of pulling out your physical card.

Some virtual credit cards also come with custom numbers for each purchase. You can use these generated numbers to protect your credit card’s actual number. If one of these generated numbers gets leaked, you can quickly delete it and generate a new number. These generated numbers shield your actual credit card number while allowing you to make purchases.

Change Your Passwords

Hackers often use the internet to obtain personal information like your credit card details, and it’s easier if you use the same password for all of your accounts. It’s a good idea to change the passwords to all accounts that have your credit card information, such as Amazon and Target. If you haven’t used any of these accounts for a while, it’s also a good practice to remove your credit card details from those accounts.

Change your passwords every three months and keep them in a place you can easily access. That way, you can log into an account that you need to access without making it easier for a cybercriminal to steal your information.

Avoid Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi is less secure than private connections. While you can use public Wi-Fi for basic things like Google searches, you shouldn’t enter your username and password for important accounts, such as your bank account or Amazon account.

You can also set up a VPN for an extra layer of security. This network offers more protection than a public Wi-Fi connection.

Set Up Fraud Alerts

While you can take all of the protective measures, it’s still possible that someone steals your credit card information.Many banks let you set up fraud alerts which can notify you about suspicious activity on your credit card. Quickly addressing the issue by freezing your card and contacting your bank can minimize the damage.