The Chronic Consumer

Do you take any extra precautions to safeguard your personal information when you shop online? I’ve probably been over this before, but I’m thinking about the issue again because I just heard that my cousin Michelle had her credit card number intercepted during an online transaction at a smaller website. She didn’t have any type of identity theft protection in place, and is now involved in a huge mess with her credit card company in trying to prove that nearly a thousand dollars worth of charges weren’t actually made by her and that she shouldn’t have to pay for them. Plus, she now needs new credit cards and all that stuff as well. What a mess!

To be honest, I don’t have identity theft protection either, but I’m very careful about where I shop. I only enter my credit card number on secure pages, and I also check my account online at least 3-4 times per week to make sure there aren’t any mysterious charges on there.

This system seems to be working for me so far, but as would-be thieves get more and more sophisticated, I might need some real protection somewhere along the line. I just hope nothing bad happens in the meantime!