Disposing Your Credit Card

Nearly all city dwellers possess a credit card. Every credit card is issued for a certain period of time and gets renewed. How do you dispose your old card ?

India does not have home shredders. You may be cutting up the card into a few pieces and disposing it along with your garbage. Please see the picture below –

It does look like I managed to cut up the three cards into small enough pieces.

Just 3 minutes later….

Just three minutes later I was able to nearly put together one of the credit cards !! It was like a puzzle that you could put together easily. Imagine if your garbage collector gets all these pieces and passes it on to someone whose intentions are not very good… critical information gets into the hands of unscrupulous elements.

How should you dispose of your credit cards ?

The best way is to invest in a home shredder. Because your address and phone number comes on every single Amazon package that gets delivered. A patient fraudster can easily collect the other required information and access your account or use your card to shop !

If you do not have a shredder, cut the card into tiny pieces and discard them on different days. Garbage gets collected every single day, simply throw a few pieces into it every other day. Or throw the pieces into different garbage bins.

Also have the card transactions show up on SMS. I caught someone trying to use my credit card from Australia just because I reported the matter as it was happening, almost instantly. The card got blocked and the charges were reversed.

Do make sure you dispose of your important papers and cards in a safe manner. Identity theft in the digital age is easier than we think. Keep your identity safe.