Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway9574 | Hacker News Reader

I know some may criticize this, but I cut up my credit card soon after moving into my first apartment. My wife and I use debit cards exclusively, but I know it's only a matter of time before our card numbers get skimmed online or through a hacked terminal. Does anyone know of any measures we could take to minimize the effects when that does happen?

View on HN

(not affiliated in any way) but privacy.com lets you hook up to your bank account and lets you generate one time use card numbers for individual bills, etc. They recently expanded to 15,000 banks/credit unions. It won't help with physical card skimming, but for online stuff it can.

https://privacy.com/

Another option is to use one credit card, and only use it for bills/budgeted expenses and NOTHING more. Then just pay it off every month. This will prevent your real money from being being stolen/frozen in the event of your card number being lost/skimmed, and it can also gain you cash back and/or rewards.

Not affiliated either but I love privacy.com! I've been using them since I saw it on HN a few weeks back and no looking back. I regularly get to exchange messages with the team and they've fixed many bug reports in record time (nothing serious, just finicky stuff).

Unlike my credit card companies who refuse to get with the program and show me auths and captures in somewhat real time. Having to wait days to find out what went through is such a joke. I thought cards were supposed to be easier... if I spent $10 in cash I know I've spent $10, with a CC I wait 3 days and find out butterfingers misplaced the decimal and I'm left trying to hunt down $1000.00 that's now on my account while I'm miles away.

Use a credit card instead of debit card and pay it off each month. If they steal your debit card number and get money out of your bank account it's a huge hassle to clear up that can take months with out getting your money back. If it's a credit card you can easily get the charges removed and even if you have to fight it you still have your money in your bank and can just refuse to pay the fraudulent credit card bill.

Credit cards have much greater fraud protection than debit cards. In the few times someone made a fraudulent purchase on my credit card, they instantly messaged me to confirm, then removed the charge and mailed me a new card/number.

Get a credit card; and a new savings account. Put an amount of money equivalent to the credit card's credit limit in the savings account. Don't touch that account so long as you have the credit card. Set up autopay for the full amount on your credit card every month.

And there you go… you have a credit card with all the benefits associated with that; but you're completely safe and don't run the risk of going into debt. If you're spending too fast, or if things go wrong, you can immediately close the credit card and pay it off in full with the amount in the savings account.

Don't use debit cards? Let the hackers hoover up somebody else's money, rather than pulling straight from your bank accounts and have your rent checks bounce and over-draft fees kick in.

It's easier to disavow spurious credit card purchases than somehow get your funds back from bad debit transactions, let alone the fees when your fixed expenses don't clear because some asshole stole your money.

Use a separate card for online purchases--for instance, a credit card that you pay off, in full, every month.

I'd get a prepaid credit card - not tied directly to any account, filled only by a transaction initiated from your end (e.g. via online banking).

Wouldn't that feel like a debit card too?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com