• Protect your credit cards as if they were cash; put them in a safe place out of sight.

• Take extra care of your handbag, purse or wallet when out shopping.

• Do not leave them unattended in a jacket or bag, especially in a car or pub.
  

• Try not let them out of site when paying your bill; this tends to happen in restaurants.

• Be vigilent when making Drive-through purchases as the payment window is often higher than your car and therefore you may lose sight of your card.
  
  It only takes seconds for you card to be 'swiped' through another card reader to make a copy of the stored data. A new card then can be 'cloned' and signed by the criminal.

• When using a cash dispenser, If your card appears to be retained DO NOT re-enter your PIN, look around and make sure that someone is not watching you to note your PIN. You could be a potential victim of the 'cash dispenser sleeve scam'.

• You should only use your card for making on-line purchases from sites that have a contact address and telephone number; many sites do not carry this information. If you do not receive the goods and your account is debited, you may be unable to recover your loss. Therefore you should deal only with known reputable companies. Also make sure that they are using the secure protocol when you are entering personal details. This is indicated by the padlock symbol on the status bar of your web-browser.

• If lost or stolen telephone your provider immediately. We are compiling a list of card provider contacts for quick reference.
  

Any Personal Identification Number (PIN) should not be written down and carried with a cash or credit card unless it is written in a form that a thief would be unable to decode. A good way of concealing them is to write all the letters of the alphabet in a line and then think of a word with four different letters that you will remember. Underneath each letter of your word enter each digit of your PIN and fill in the remaining spaces with numbers at random. You then only have to remember one word instead of many numbers.

With a Visa card PIN of "1234" and a cash card PIN of “5678”, the resulting table for the word "CARD" may be:

     A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Visa 2 8 1 4 7 5 8 9 2 2 5 1 0 8 6 4 2 3 6 4 2 5 9 5 1 6
Cash 6 7 5 8 4 3 5 6 7 7 6 6 5 9 8 4 7 7 5 3 2 7 6 4 5 8