Additionally, 58% of poll respondents claim not to have the post office hold letter deliveries or make other arrangements to secure their mail while away from home on a trip. Not only is an overflowing mailbox a tip off to burglars that the house is vacant but any easily-accessible pre-approved credit card offers give fraudsters the perfect opportunity to open up fraudulent accounts.

If you have future travel plans, here are a few tips to keep your personal financial information such as your credit cards safe while you are away from home:

Repack Your Wallet

Before you leave on your adventure, empty out everything from your wallet and start from scratch. Don’t take every single credit card you own long with you, but fill it only with the ones you know you will use. Stash any extra cards in a safe place at home until you return.

Secure Your Papers

As part of securing your house in preparation for your absence, make sure you place all of your personal documents, financial and otherwise, into a safe or other locked container. There have been an increasing number of reports by victims of break-ins that the cooks made off with their credit card account numbers along with their valuables.

Use The Safe

Make sure that you use the safe in your hotel room to lock up whatever valuables you bring with you on your trip while you sleep and whenever you are not in the room. You should never carry all of your cards with you in your wallet while on vacation, but only the one you plan to use while leaving the others behind locked in the room safe in case of an emergency.

Dress Appropriately

When you reach your destination, make sure that what you wear protects your credit cards and electronic devices such as cell phones from potential thieves. Consider using a money belt beneath your clothing, or keep your valuables inside something with secure pockets. There are amazing items on the market now such as specially-designed travel vests and jackets that can securely hold a tablet device such as an iPad.

Set A Password

If you bring a smartphone, tablet or laptop with you on your trip, be sure to password protect it in order to help prevent thieves from gaining access to your private information. This is especially important for devices that have apps leading directly to your credit card or bank accounts.

Monitor Your Accounts While Away

Even if you are out of the country, have a peek at your credit card and bank activity to make sure there has been no fraudulent activity. Just make certain that you do not log onto any credit card or banking website using a public computer or go online via an unsecured WiFi network.

Doing these things will greatly decrease the changes of your coming home to face the unpleasant shock that your identity has been compromised in your absence.

The chip technology, known as EMV for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, is currently being tested by some of the bigger retail banks in America such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Additionally currency exchange company Travelex has begun offering for sale to travelers a preloaded debit card that contains an EMV chip. There are also a handful of credit unions that are making EMV-enabled credit and debit cards available to their customers, such as the New York based United Nations Federal Credit Union and the Raleigh, NC State Employees’ Credit Union.

These chip-and-pin cards require that users type in a personal identification number to complete transactions in lieu of signing at the register. The claim is that these types of cards have a higher resistance to fraud, as they are difficult to counterfeit and the sensitive personal information stored on them is not as vulnerable as on magnetic-strip cards.

Up until now, American banks and business have been reluctant to change over to the new technology, primarily due to the expense of converting to chip-and-pin cards and the compatible cash registers and payment terminals.

But if you are not one of the lucky few who already has an EMV card and you are planning a trip out of the country, what can you do?

Identify The Likeliest Place to Run Into Difficulty

While most European businesses have the equipment to process magnetic strip credit and debit cards, there are cashiers who don’t know how to handle them. However, you should be able to go ahead and use your magnetic strip cards in the majority of bars, restaurants and retail stores. It is a wise idea to carry a couple of different credit cards with you when you travel, because if one does not go through there is a chance that a different one might. Just be polite and request that the cashier try each one of your cards to see if their card reader will accept one over the other.

The real potential for problems lies in automated ticket kiosks which are typically found at gas pumps, and in places like parking garages and train stations. Many of them flat out do not accept any cards other than chip and pin cards. It is possible to reserve train tickets online over the internet if you can plan your travel in advance. Otherwise, consider picking up one of those afore-mentioned pre-loaded Travelex debit cards. If you have any funds remaining on the card at the end of your trip they can be converted back into U.S. dollars.

The Good News

ATM machines, for the most part, will accept and recognize all different types of magnetic strip cards, so you will be able to withdraw money from your bank account in a pinch.