Losing Your Credit Card

The worst thing about having your wallet lost or stolen is knowing that whoever now has your wallet can use your credit cards to incur steep bills that you may be responsible for. Aside from the stress of identity theft and having to replace all your lost cards, the possibility of someone ruining your credit history is enough to cause even the hardiest soul to lose sleep. There are steps that you can take to ensure such things do not happen when you discover that you have lost your credit card.

The first thing to do is to call and inform all your credit card companies of what happened. They will immediately freeze all activity on the lost card and put an alert on the card warning vendors to call the company if anyone should try and use it.

Federal law limits liability for unauthorized charges to $50.00, but you must report the loss without delay.

However sometimes people lose their credit card without knowing that they have lost it until they see charges for purchases that they did not make. In general credit card companies require that you report any lost credit cards or suspicious account activity within 24 hours. Most credit cards now offer fraud protection to their card holders, which limits a customer’s liability to fifty dollars, although most credit card companies admit that they rarely enforce that rule. They will make exceptions for those who do not report lost or stolen credit cards or suspicious activity immediately. Once you have reported the stolen or lost credit card the card companies will cancel that old account and issue you another card. Usually this process is very fast and you they can get a replacement credit card to you within the week – even sooner if it is an emergency situation, i.e.: you are on vacation. Just remember that reporting a lost credit card is imperative for your financial security.