Bank accounts

[knotquiteawake]

Without a credit card, how do you reserve hotel rooms? Buy plane tickets? I won't use Debit Cards because of the ridiculous hold they put on the card when you check in...

I do it all the time! I usually reserve my hotel rooms through expedia or something like that. I buy my plane tickets through Southwest Airlines. I rent my cars using rental companies that accept debit cards. I do all this with a debit card only and never have problems.

As far as the holds go, whats the difference between a debit card linked to an account with $10,000 deposited and a credit card with a $10,000 limit? You don't have to make a payment on the debit card! Visa and Mastercard insures the transaction just the same on a Debit run as credit as a credit card. The holds drop off after a few days. It's not a problem for me because, since I don't have any payments, I don't worry about not having any cash to cover the holds

Don't accept the lies the credit card companies feed you to keep you beholden to them.

This has been my same experience as well. Never had an issue and I have not had a credit card in two years. I have had card info stolen 3 times (twice on my card, once on my wife's). All three times we had the money back in our account (provisionally until the banks "investigation" is completed) within 24 hours. Wells Fargo used to be our bank and the two times I had my card info stolen I found the fraudulent charges from Europe on Austrian Airlines, had to contact them and resolve it. I now use Texans Credit Union and I got a phonecall within an hour of a fraudulent charge I got a phone call asking me about the charge, the transaction was blocked, new card was issued.

[pbwalker]

Without a credit card, how do you reserve hotel rooms? Buy plane tickets? I won't use Debit Cards because of the ridiculous hold they put on the card when you check in...

I do it all the time! I usually reserve my hotel rooms through expedia or something like that. I buy my plane tickets through Southwest Airlines. I rent my cars using rental companies that accept debit cards. I do all this with a debit card only and never have problems.

As far as the holds go, whats the difference between a debit card linked to an account with $10,000 deposited and a credit card with a $10,000 limit? You don't have to make a payment on the debit card! Visa and Mastercard insures the transaction just the same on a Debit run as credit as a credit card. The holds drop off after a few days. It's not a problem for me because, since I don't have any payments, I don't worry about not having any cash to cover the holds

Don't accept the lies the credit card companies feed you to keep you beholden to them.

Valid points...but I like earning rewards for what I spend. I still pay it off each month, so if I can get airline miles, I'm happy!

[Purplehood]

Use the Credit option at the Gas Pump. Ever since I quit using the Debit option I have not had to go through yet another new Debit card due to fraudulent charges.
I also have my I-phone set to notifying me of each and every charge against my Debit card.

[jayinsat]

PBWALKER,

I get rewards on my debit card as well, including airline miles. SACU offers this program through Shoppers Advantage discount Product club. Plus, I get dividends paid to me for having such a large balance. They pay me interest instead of paying them interest.

Not trying to convince you are argue, just sharing info. Discipline is key no matter what.

[pbwalker]

Discipline is key no matter what.

Bingo! That's what it all boils down to.

I bank with USAA and they don't have any type of rewards program.

[knotquiteawake]

Discipline is key no matter what.

Bingo! That's what it all boils down to.

I wish I had been taught this earlier! I can't even imagine how much more I would have in savings if I had made some different decisions in the past. But at least having made bad calls or just poor long term decisions, I have learned the lesson even better and can share the success with friends and family (without being preachy, nobody wants to hear unsolicited financial advice).

[jayinsat]

me too!

[Thomas]

Use the Credit option at the Gas Pump. Ever since I quit using the Debit option I have not had to go through yet another new Debit card due to fraudulent charges.
I also have my I-phone set to notifying me of each and every charge against my Debit card.

That's what I do, until I did get fraudulent charges... at another gas station. If you use your pin and they get it, they can use your card anywhere. If you use your zip code and they get it, they can use it at other gas stations which just require the zip code.

Your method isn't 100% safe, but it can limit the damage done by the criminal.

[jayinsat]

Your method isn't 100% safe, but it can limit the damage done by the criminal.

That's the point! No method is 100% safe. The truth is, the bg's can and will steal your info no matter what you do and which services we use to protect ourselves. Life-loc, Credit shields, etc, will not stop the bg. It will only alert us to their activities. We must remain diligent. That's why we carry! The LEO's can't be everywhere so we must fill in the blanks. Watch your statements closely. Use services like Life-loc. I use mint.com to aggregate my account balances and it shows me daily transactions and activity that I can easily view and monitor.

Great thread.

[puma guy]

I have had several incidents of CC/debit card info theft and use. One was with a debit card that was a week old. Used it in the morning at a store and saw later that another transaction took place that afternoon. I confronted the store and got them to provide a transaction log which indicated the items and the fact they withdrew cash as well. None of the items were of the brand or type we used and I had indisputable proof I was at home when the sale took place. The store manager refused to call up the video from the 39 cameras they have in place. That indicated to me they were in on it or knew that they had a problem. Police were not interested at all and I had to force them to give me a case number. What I found out was debits are completely unprotected from a consumer standpoint. My card is a debit/credit from my CU. I learned that using it as a credit transaction from my account instead of a debit gives me protection from fraudulent use. I never do debit transactions.

[sunny beach]

I bank with USAA and they don't have any type of rewards program.

Check again. I have a USAA Rewards mastercard in my wallet right now.

[pbwalker]

I bank with USAA and they don't have any type of rewards program.

Check again. I have a USAA Rewards mastercard in my wallet right now.

Hmm...I'll have to look in to it. I rarely use the card, but if I can get better benefits than my United card, I may have to change my card. I've had this one for about 8 years now, so it may been that they didn't have it then. Thanks for the heads up.

[gigag04]

USAA called me this morning and told me someone in the UK used my debit card to order $590 worth of junk. They also signed up for an online dating site...

go figure...

[Thomas]

I just got this email in response to a complaint I put in to a domain-hosting company (I received a faked CareerBuilder phishing email and traced the IP-address to this company):

Just FYI, the answer I gave you was pretty general. We are very grateful that you reported this to us. The hosting account was set up yesterday with a stolen credit card. You helped us save a poor person from getting their card charged. We were able to cancel the payment before it was complete. The hosting account was deleted immediately and the IP was reported to the authorities. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a little more detail and let you know that you did a good deed yesterday. You can check that one off your list for the good deed of the day. Have a great weekend.


Thank you,
Tevita

Score one for the good guys :)

Awesome! What company was that?