No Friendly Fire, Here

Amazingly--although I had to check my credit card log to make sure--I was not in the blast radius of the Target credit/debit card theft explosion.

I was in Target in that period. And in years past I would have been in there multiple times for Christmas shopping, with credit card in hand. This year, for whatever reason, I had not bought anything. I guess I haven't been in the mood for beef jerky lately (their prices are good).

Oh, I went in once looking for something in particular (Kazoozles, if you must know). But when I didn't find it I set down something else I had because I didn't want to stand in line when I hadn't gotten what I came in to get.

So near miss.

I did go yesterday for a gift I wanted from there--and had been meaning to get for several weeks now! And paid cash. So I missed the 10% discount that Target is offering this weekend to keep customers from fleeing.

Oh well. I count myself lucky to have avoided the theft and won't complain I missed the marketing response.

And yes, this is really a pain to the many people affected. I once had a card compromised that I almost always use exclusively for online purchases just to minimize the scope of the problem of theft--if I'm hit it will likely just be one card affected. While I never had to pay for any of the thousands in charges made on the card and received a replacement card within a couple days, I did have to monitor and report bad charges for a couple months until they petered out.

And it was insulting to be given the cautionary tips on using credit cards. Honestly, short of not using them at all, I'm not sure how I could be more careful.

I check my card statements every month and compare them to my log of charges.

During one period of time when that card had the feature that allows you to pass it in front of a reader to use it, I never took it out of my home to avoid mobile reader scams.

I refuse to accept a debit card capability for my ATM card.

I actually look for skimmers on ATMs and gas pumps.

And I refuse to use online banking or online bill paying.

Indeed, when I received a call to notify me of potentially fraudulent use of my card, I double checked with the number I had rather than rely on the phone number the caller left on my answering machine to use--just in case they were part of some fraud.

Yet I was being lectured on careful credit card use.

But I love the convenience of using credit cards rather than carrying cash for routine purchases. Should I just use cash, now? Has it reached that point?