I have everything direct billed to my credit card. About 20 different things. Then the card get’s paid automatically out of my bank account every month, so I carry no balance and pay no interest.
Seeing I get credits towards cars from it, I come out way ahead. When I bought my Vette last year I had an additional $3500 added to my payment from the credits on the card. This is in addition to any rebates that apply to cars.
I don’t even use a checking account any more. In the rare instance when I need an actual check I just get a cashiers check or money order, both of which I get free from my bank.
The convenience of this set up is wonderful. I go online from time to time to make sure the proper amounts are being charged and such, but otherwise out of sight out of mind. I love it.
Can’t be too, happy though, right? In June, just like every 3 years, card expired. Had to go through every account and update the expiration date. Just knew I’d miss a few and got some letters from the cell phone company and lawn care folks.
But took care of it and am good to go for 3 years.
Sigh!:rolleyes: No I’m not!
Yesterday they sent me a new card, with a different account number, security code, and expiration date! Said this card has a chip in it and I have to use it and destroy the “old” card (that I just got in June). Now I have to go through and do this all over again, only I have to not only update the expiration date, but also the account number and security code on the back! YTH didn’t they send me this card 3 months ago?
When chip cards first started coming out in larger numbers, I asked my bank if I could get one. (I had a particular need). Nope. Not going to happen. It will be months before we get around to you. Requests are futile.
Ok, I opened a new credit account at another bank to get the pin card for my particular need. Before the card arrived…
I’ve had a chip card for a while now. When I first got it some stores were confused, but things have improved. I like it, especially the way tipping in restaurants is streamlined.
So far, the only “benefit” I’ve encountered is the momentary confusion while i figure out whether card insertion is optional, mandatory or “not working yet” whenever I try to buy something.
We use one card for the rewards, and charge almost everything to it. Last year we had used it at Home Depot so they replaced it because of the breach. Major pain in the neck.
This year, they replaced it (same account number at least) because of the new chip requirements. We were within 18 months of the next scheduled replacement anyway - why couldn’t they roll it out in waves?? (most retailers here don’t even have chip-reading terminals anyway). AND, I’m pretty sure they never sent the replacement cards initially - we certainly never found them. When I called to get them reissued they said “ooooooh, gotta change the card number and everything”. I called again 3 days later and that person said “no, we just need to re-send them”.
So like you we have to update it all over the place. Again.
Interestingly at least one regular biller has managed to get something through even w/o our updating it. I guess some systems automatically try the same card number with the following year’s expiration date.
I actually gave up one card (that we used to use all the time) because out of the blue they said “was Visa, now Mastercard, isn’t life wonderful!”. I decided to reward them with my further non-business (we actually kept the card, and use it about twice a year).
One thing I do is use one card for all the auto-bill pay stuff as the OP describes. And then NEVER use that card for any retail purchases.
Why? Pretty much every year I my main retail card issuer has to send me a new card with a new number after Target or Home Depot or … get hacked. So even if there are no bad charges on *my *card, I get a new one with a new number whether I want one or not because hundreds of thousands of their cards got compromised.
OTOH, I’ve never had to replace the card that auto-pays all the bills. Every three years I have to update all the expiration dates, but that’s it. By never exposing that card to retailers I seem to have been dodging the fraud prevention replacement cycle.
I’ve been offered a terminal. I insert my card and it shows how much I’m paying and asks if I’d like to tip/how much. I punch in my tip, remove card when instructed to.
In Canada that switch was more a function of wireless terminals than chip technology. It may have been spurred by our comparatively early adoption of debit cards. I remember restaurants having the wireless terminals a fair bit before the chip cards came on the scene. I think it would have been somewhere between 2002 and 2004 or so.
It’s a good idea to keep a list of all the automatic payments (and what they look like on your credit card statement). Check your statement for new ones that don’t belong. Also let your SO know about the list so they know how bills are paid in case anything happens to you.
Do you use that card for nothing else? How does anyone manage to go three years without having fraudulent activity on their credit card? I end up getting a new one about every six months because of that.
Seriously? I use my card for most everything, like the OP (though I get cash back; the points/credit towards cars is intriguing to me, though!), and I’ve never had fraudulent activity on it OR my debit card that I have as a backup (since some places don’t take Amex). My husband has had just one incident ever, and it was quickly discovered by Amex; they took care of it and sent out a replacement card immediately during/after their phone call to him.
ETA: Also wanted to add that I’ve used both cards in Mexico, too. Still no issues.
I seem to get actual fraudulent activity about every 3 years or so on my main retail card.
But far more frequently (like every 11 months or so) my card issuer will do something like
So for that reason I keep all my recurrent pre-arranged payments on a card that never gets used for ordinary retail. Not that I’m getting skimmed or scammed. But rather than somebody else will, and I’ll have to update all those arrangements when it happens.
I recently had to get a new card when there was fraudulent activity on mine. I downloaded six months worth of purchases from the card’s website into a spreadsheet, sorted it by vendor, and scanned that to see which retailer’s I’d need to update. I have quite a few autopays, but it didn’t take all that long to do the updates online.
When I saw the fraudulent activity on the card, it was when I was scanning my recent online activity. The charge was from a week prior, and I couldn’t identify it. It was only $35 and I considered letting it go, as I do a lot of online shopping. I went ahead and called Chase anyway, and they couldn’t give me any additional information about the retailer than what I saw on the online activity, and when I googled the company I couldn’t find any useful information that would have lead me to believe I had made a purchase from them. So, Chase suspected it was fraudulent, reversed the charge, and canceled the card.
It bothered me that I had waited so long to check my charges, had I looked at the activity earlier, I would have been more able to say whether or not I had made that $35 charge. I now have downloaded the apps for all my credit cards to my iPhone, and I have the alerts set so that every charge comes to my phone. This worked to my advantage a couple of weeks ago. I take care of my dad’s accounting, and have his credit card alerts set up on my phone. One morning I saw two charges that I know he didn’t make pop up on my phone. I confirmed with him that he didn’t make them (they were online purchases, and he doesn’t use a computer). I was able to cancel the card immediately and get another issued to him. If I had waited a week to check his statement, it could have been much worse than $1000 in charges. Hopefully the bank notified the retailers so the stuff that was ordered wasn’t shipped out, but I doubt it.
Yes, fraud happens - but it’s hardly “everyone every 6 months”-level of common unless you’re in a very high-fraud area and basically leave it lying around on countertops for anyone to pick it up, or use it on your computer with no malware protection in place.
I use my card all over the place, and have only had that one fraudulent charge which was an inside job.
Well, actually, my company Amex had a bad charge once - 35 or 40 dollars for some kind of self help books. That card is one I never used online, only on rare business travel (of which there had been none in a while), and I probably would not have even noticed the charge if I hadn’t had Quicken downloading transactions. No clue how they could have gotten the card info.
Amex reversed it immediately but did not issue me a new card. Interestingly enough, it caused me issues at work a year or more later. I had a small charge to put through the expense system, and it wouldn’t let me do so until I explained why there was a refund on my corporate Amex (the system had downloaded the refund but no the charge). I had to write up an explanation of the refund and why it didn’t mean I owed my company money.
I do a lot of online shopping and a lot of that is at smaller shops. Even though they all have https and something else saying “this site is protected by…” I get hacked roughly every six months. Now, I’ve started going through PayPal when I can to see if that helps.
It just happened again two weeks ago. This time it was four PlayStation charges for the same amount on one day. The time before that it was through Google Play and I told them to cancel anything they had set up for me there since I haven’t had an android device in ages. I generally check my credit card online every day so I always catch things right away but it’s a pain having to wait for a new card. But now I have a backup card for when this happens. I’m used to changing all my accounts and memorizing a new cc number all the time.
A few years ago I happened to be working at home and started getting confirmation e-mails for orders placed in my name for crap like vitamins and I don’t remember what else that were actually going to be shipped to me so I assume that was some teenager in a basement somewhere because, what would be the point other than to hassle someone? I managed to stop all but one order from being shipped.
Seriously? I use my card for most everything, like the OP (though I get cash back; the points/credit towards cars is intriguing to me, though!), and I’ve never had fraudulent activity on it OR my debit card that I have as a backup (since some places don’t take Amex). My husband has had just one incident ever, and it was quickly discovered by Amex; they took care of it and sent out a replacement card immediately during/after their phone call to him.