According to a recent poll on epaynews.com, three quarters of consumers say that credit card fraud is a major or moderate concern. And they have good reason to be concerned. The Federal Trade Commission estimates there are $3 billion in fraudulent charges each year.

Visa and MasterCard estimate that we spend nearly $2 trillion dollars using their cards each year. And, that doesn't include the money we spend using other cards such as Discover, American Express, department store cards and gas cards.

The Dangers
How can you protect yourself from credit or debit card fraud? It’s fairly easy when the card is out of your sight for a server or cashier to write down the card number and the verification code on the back. Later they can use the numbers to make purchases where a physical credit card isn't required.

The advantage to using a debit card instead of a credit card is that the crook can only spend what is in the account and so one way to protect yourself is to keep less in the account. Of course, keeping a low balance means adding money to the account every time you intend to use it.

A credit card can be used up to its credit limit.

There are things you can do to protect yourselves but the most effective tools are also the ones that are most inconvenient.