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Another low-tech thing I have done to protect myself is I have physically cut the numbers off my cards with scissors. My name and expiration date are still there. This way when I pay at a restaurant in the US and the card is out of my sight I don't worry about someone writing down the card details. So far not a single business has refused me when I hand them my modified card with the numbers cut off.

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Some companies issue their card without the numbers written on them so I don’t think it’ll be concern.

Although you will be out of luck in the very rare situations where the merchant has to fall all the way back to a completely offline transaction on paper. Usually they use a little plastic roller device that impresses the number onto carbon paper to reduce errors, which is why they were embossed rather than printed in the first place.

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