A couple of things, to continue the hi-jacking of KH's message:)

In france already and soon in the rest of Europe, we will have a sytem on "chip and pin" cards- where there's a satellite link to the mothership that authorises the payment from one of those little hand held machines you saw in the restaurants, bucko; backed up by you having to put your own pin number in.

When, after all, was the last time you saw anyone CHECK a credit card signature?

We have a filling station here in Aberdeen that was cloning cards. My partner found himself mysteriously buying shoes in Florence, when he had never left teh country.

But realistically cards are one of the most secure ways of accessing money when travelling.

It is impossible to keep an eye on your card "at all times" when it is taken from you in a restaurant for processing, and then returned. And even if you did, the establishment, every establishment, where you use it has a copy of the number, your name, the exp date, etc., on their copy of the receipt.
Be happy that your liability is lim ited to $50 and probably less since you obviously notified the CC issuer of your travel dates. And no, i do not think "sticking" to cash is a real bright idea either, but to each their risky own!

I do not know of any bank in the US that makes any effort to collect the $50 they are supposedly entitled to on fraudulent charges.

We had some 2,000$ in charges put on our visa 2 weeks after we returned from Italy;
they originated from an area opposite of where we had been; it's a pain to make all the calls required.....

The last time I was in Italy, I used my Visa card once and it was in Rome.I watched the guy like an eagle, but I guess not well enough. I was there for three weeks. A month after I returned, I was called by Visa asking me if I had charged a couple of thousand dollars worth of stuff in Rome within the last couple of days. I obviously hadn't. They blocked the charges. I said there was only one store that could have stollen the number. They didn't care and said nothing would be done. They could see from my purchases that I never used the card except in that one store. It didn't matter, they wouldn't do anything. That's why we have so much fraud. Why sould anyone worry about stealing someone's CC number, they won't be prosicuted.

Few people understand credit cards. Your Cardholder Agreement protects you against fraudulent charges, whether by a waiter in New Haven or an online hacker. <b>If your signature is not on the charge, you can demand it be reversed</b>. The merchant who accepted the transaction without proof of identity has to eat the amount (usually; see below).

The reason the credit card issuers want you to safeguard your numbers is to protect <i><b>them</b></i> (not <u>you</u>) against the &quot;Rogue Merchant&quot; scenario: a criminal opens a merchant account and charges a lot of transactions to it using stolen numbers. The money for the day's charges is transferred into his account each night. Before the cardholders receive their statements and have the charges reversed, the merchant withdraws the money from the account and heads south. In this case, the card issuer can't back-charge the merchant (because the account is empty) and so has to eat the charges.

Using a credit card is still the best defense against theft or loss, no matter where in the world you are.

Merchants may not pay attention to signatures much anymore, but it is to their detriment since they will incur the charge-back if it's fraudulent.

I just had a fraud charge over $1800 come onto a card I hadn't used in a while, from IBM. There was no problem getting that credited back and a new card/acct# issued. (this fraud was totally unrelated to travel anywhere, used it to pay off car loan balance).

So it can happen anytime, anywhere and it is not really your risk, it is the credit card company's (as Robespierre stated). Just use normal precautions to secure your card, watch your statements and notify the company immediately of anything suspicious.

Quite a few restaurants in France have portable credit-card machines (they look kind of like a long cell phone) that the server brings to you. The whole transaction is done right at the table.

I find this to be a very interesting thread as I just received an advertisement for an American Express Travel Fund Card. Does anyone have experience with this? It is a prepaid card (you 'deposit' what ever amount you want) that is not linked to your bank account. If lost/stolen they can refund the money within 24 hours.
You can also use it at ATMs.

Sounds very interesting.

AAA also offers such a travel card, but I think it's used only to withdraw funds at an ATM, not in place of a credit card.

We talked about those cards on another thread... they have some costs associated with them, ie activiation fee, expiration period, automatic balance reduction for non-use, etc. Need to read about the rules and fees...

On our trip to the UK last month, I noticed that just about every clerk checked the signature on the back of my credit card against the signature on the charge slip. I was surprised, since almost no one does that here at home.

You may have convinced bbib but not me :-) I want to chime in as a fan of cash. You don't have to walk around with &quot;wads&quot; of it. Simply visit a bank or ATM every few days. I do have a credit card along for major expenses only, like the hotel bill or an emergency situation. I figure the less you use a credit card, the more you improve chances of avoiding something going wrong, like all the stories above.

I take 2 credit cards with me. One for hotel bill only. The other for ATM withdrawals and maybe a couple of charges along the way.

When I got home I immediately had the one charge card # changed so if anyone got ahold of it that shouldn't it wouldn't do them any good. The other one was for my hotel only so it would be a little easier to keep track of.

I explained mysituation to the card company and they were happy to accomodate my request.

Suze......Don't be too complacent about ATMs, here in the UK, and probably many other places, there are well known ATM scams, paricularly in busy streets. Beware of anyone close behind you, these people (often Eastern Europeans) work in gangs to divert your attention, read your PIN number as you enter it, and then steal your card. They have even been known to install a miniature camera above the ATM, which transmits to a laptop in a car parked nearby !!