Cancel Lost Credit Cards

You should cancel lost credit cards as soon as you become aware, even after you recover them. When we lose our credit cards, we lose control of them. Even a temporary control loss of our credit cards can be devastating if they fall into the wrong hands.

There have been numerous cases where criminals have used the lost credit card numbers to make purchases either by phone, online or in person using manufactured cards developed based on the information obtained from the lost cards. By the way, can you guess where some criminals have their purchased goods shipped to after they make the fraudulent transaction? It’s hard to believe but they ask the merchants to ship the goods to their home address. The criminals have even in some cases returned the credit cards to the rightful owner after shopping. I’m not sure why they bother to return the cards after they harm the credit card owner but it could be due to guilt feelings. I guess criminals are not as smart as we give them credit for considering their judgment to use their own address to receive the purchased goods and return the credit cards to the rightful owners after committing the fraud. I’m sure having the criminals’ home address is a good piece of information for the investigators.

As a credit card fraud preventive solution, you should always cancel lost credit cards even if you recover them later. As far as I’m concerned, the privacy of credit cards may be compromised when you lose them and can lead to identity fraud if you don’t replace them with new ones immediately and cancel the old ones. I would hope that you cancel your cards as soon as you lose them after a quick search, but just in case you don’t, cancel lost credit cards right after you recover them, especially if they’re recovered from a stranger. Recovered cards could be more dangerous than cards never found because you may have this feeling of security while possessing your cards and never realize that someone else may know and use your name, credit card number and credit card security code printed in the back of the card to commit a fraud.

Also, when you lose your credit cards, don’t look for them forever. A lengthy search for the lost credit cards on your part may delay your efforts to cancel lost credit cards, thus, allowing criminals to abuse your lost credit cards even more. As soon as you realize you’ve lost a credit card, think of where you might have left it such as your home or office. Look for it there and if you find it, good for you and if you don’t cancel lost credit cards immediately. However, even if you recover your lost credit cards from places where they might have been exposed to criminals, you should still cancel them immediately. You see, a criminal may even temporarily get the hold of your credit card by distracting you in order to obtain the information needed to commit the identity fraud, and then somehow return the credit card immediately to you to clear any suspicions. Now that you have your card again, you feel safe while the criminal goes shopping. That’s why you should always cancel a lost credit card even after you recover it from strangers or public places, unless you recover the card from a trustworthy location like your home and office where no one else has access to. You should even cancel lost credit cards from the homes of family members and friends whom you don’t completely trust. Don’t we all have untrustworthy family members and friends? Another reason is that we don't know the people that enter their homes for various reasons like window cleaning and other services.

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