Provided by the Bucks County Consumer Protection Department:
In light of the recent news about a major department store’s security breach, the Bucks County Consumer Protection Department would like to inform consumers of the following:
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Your liability for fraudulent charges is limited under federal law:
- Your responsibility for unauthorized CREDIT card charges is limited to $50 and,
- in some cases, would be $0.
- Your responsibility for fraudulent DEBIT card charges can be somewhat more.
- $50 if you notify your bank within 2 days
- Up to $500 after that
- The fraudulent charges can be unlimited if you fail to report the fraud charges within 60 days after you receive your bank statement. Unfortunately, since the money to pay a debit card comes directly out of your bank account, you will not have access to that money until the fraud charges have been reversed.
Visa and MasterCard both have a “zero liability” policy that limits your loss to $0. However, these are voluntary policies. When you do contact your credit card company, do not pay a fee to receive a replacement card-even during the holiday season. Request that the issuer wave the expedited fee to send a replacement card.
- Check your credit report but, again, do not panic. It’s recommended that you do this regularly anyway. Usually, theft of a credit card number does not lead to the thief opening new accounts because your Social Security number, which is needed to open a new account, is not kept as part of the credit card data.
A security freeze is the best prevention against ID theft after a breach. This will prevent your credit report from being shared with potential new creditors. If you put a security freeze in place, a thief will most likely be unable to get credit in your name. For more information on placing a security freeze see http://www.experian.com/consumer/security_freeze.html
