Defending yourself against high expenses on credit cards

Temptations might be running high, and so would negotiations and bargains with the holiday season fast approaching. However, you need to follow a few simple strategies to stay safe. As per a recent survey, consumers will spend on average, about 689 dollars in the current year. This represents a slight increase from last year`s number of 682 dollars. However, if you are not careful and don`t protect yourself from your habits, as well as fraudsters, your holiday expenses can go skyrocketing.

The first thing to ensure is to never let your credit card out of your sight, whether you are paying bills while shopping, at restaurants, in the parking lot or anywhere else. It is not advisable to leave your credit card unguarded anywhere if there are other people around. If you need to give your credit card to someone for payments, you must ensure that you are giving it to a legitimate person. The next thing to look out for, is coupons on credit card sites. These offer handy discounts on items you buy, or retailers you purchase from. There could be endless deals online you can really benefit from.

Another thing to check, is whether your protection includes a return policy in case you find a problem with the product you purchased. Some credit cards have additional protection for price, purchase or return, which cardholders can especially benefit from. For online purchases it is always a good idea to use credit cards instead of debit cards. Debit cards don`t receive protection, so there might not be liability available in case of frauds. On the other hand, you can deny expenses on your expenditure report if you use your credit cards for payment and the card information has been misused in some way.

When you are preparing your budget, you must be careful of the unexpected expenses, which might be small but later add up to a substantial amount. Therefore, you should always buffer in a little extra. A good habit is to ask for a credit report and go through it carefully to check if there has been any fraud or if you have been overspending yourself. Similarly, your credit score might be affected if you rack up a lot of expenses and then leave them unpaid. On the other hand, it is advisable to avoid opening new credit card accounts.

Doug Nicholas

Doug Nicholas, a financial consultant by profession with a Masters degree in International Business from Brown University, is also an ardent writer. Though he has a full time job at one of the companies listed on Wall Street, he does manage to squeeze in time to follow his passion. He puts his ideas to words in his articles related to finance and business.