Safer Online Credit Card

[jesse_the_k]

To minimize the damage if my credit card is compromised/hacked/stolen online, I maintain an only-online credit card with a very low limit. In the unfortunate event that it's stolen, there's not a lot of damage the thief could distribute.

This works particularly well because my credit union permits me to overpay the card if I need to buy something that's over its standard limit. So if I have to buy a plane ticket to New Zealand(1), I can transfer $2000 to the card and then charge.

For my everyday life, I have another credit card that's got a higher limit. I never use it online.




(1) I wish.

Comments

[sonia]

Good idea! Relatedly, I tied my Paypal account to my business savings account (which I don't use) rather than business checking, so they can't suck money out if they get a mind to. Makes a two-step transfer when I want to get money out, and it's worth it to me.


This is how rumors start! So *if* you were going to New Zealand, when would you go? What do you want to see?

[jesse_the_k]

I finally closed my PP account because I read one-too-many horror stories about PP arbitrarily delaying transfers of funds from PP to the recipient's hands, because PP just felt like it.

But I can imagine that for your business, you don't have a choice.

I don't quite understand: why couldn't PayPal go rogue and suck money out of your savings account? Or does your bank require special authorization for withdrawals?

---

I would visit everywhere in NZ. While the TV series "At The Top of the Lake" creeped me out majorly, the scenery was right out of a fairytale. So I'd want to do that, and check out beaches, and do the Middle Earth tour, and mock the Antarctic travelers when they leave & land. As a start.

[sonia]

Your New Zealand aspirations sound lovely!

There's never any money in the biz savings account, except briefly when I transfer a payment from Paypal to savings and then out to checking.

[jesse_the_k]

Nice trick with the savings account.

[monanotlisa]

I too dislike PayPal -- I am not opening a wallet with them because of their terrible customer service, but I would be careful about believing horror stories about "arbitrary" delays of disbursements. PayPal is a money transmitter in the US and a bank in Europe; they follow strict and often byzantine rules about how they have to vet customers who receive money.

[jesse_the_k]

Interesting.

Unfortunately money transmitters are regulated state-by-state in the U.S., and thus highly susceptible to local lobbying. Most US multinationals are registered in Delaware, famous for its corporate-friendliness. (There's minimal US oversight thanks to the 2012 Dodd-Frank Act.)

Establishing EU-wide banking laws must have required several person-millennia of negotiations.

[lilysea]

I maintain an only-online credit card with a very low limit.

(Only if you are comfortable answering)

how low is low?

My online credit card has a $1000 limit, which is the lowest the bank will go without closing the card.

[jesse_the_k]

Mine is $1500. The credit union contacts me every three months and offers a higher limit :,)

[lilysea]

Here in Australia, new rules mean they're not legally allowed to do that anymore.

[jesse_the_k]

Yay!

[wild_irises]

This seems super-smart to me. I may do something similar, so thanks for the tip!