Last week I wrote about how I found out I became a victim of credit card fraud. At that time I lost a big amount of money, $1,500 USD, to be exact. It wasn’t until the company charged me like they always do, I discovered some of the transactions on my card were fraudulent.
A week later and for me, everything is solved. My credit card company has reimbursed my money already and the form to make the transactions marked as fraudulent has been signed and sent. Until then it wasn’t 100% clear to me how it exactly happened. I’m always very careful to use my card because I don’t want to become a victim of credit card fraud. Surely that didn’t work out too well. I had my suspicions and to me it all leaded towards RFID readers that read my info from as far as 10 feet (4 meters) away!
My credit card company gets two thumbs of from me for responding the way they did when I phoned in and for reimbursing me so quickly.
Earlier this week I was talking to a colleague about all this and she told me she had received a letter from her credit card company too stating her card was blocked on suspicion of being a victim of credit card fraud! Now this came as a shocker to both of us. The transactions were all around the same time and we take our breaks together sometimes popping across the street to get something to eat. It’s a very busy public area with lots of people passing through every day. Now since we both still have our (now blocked) cards, I’m sure it happened with RFID reader!
Now that everything is arranged with my credit card company and I have been reimbursed, I didn’t want someone reading my RFID chips again. RFID chips aren’t only in your credit cards, most bank cards, ID cards and passports have the same type of chip. All of which can be read by someone. To hopefully prevent this from happening again, I invested in an RFID blocking wallet.
There are many RFID wallets around, but I’m a PacSafe girl, a real fan, so when I saw their RFID blocking wallets that will also hold my passport I was sold on it. It’s an RFID-tec 250 women’s wallet.
It comes in cool steel (pictured above), black and shadow. And shadow has an orange interior. I’m very happy with it and bills, cards and coins are all easily accessible when I need them. But obviously not too easy for those who have no business in my wallet 😉
I was also recommended the Secrid wallet by someone and I really appreciate it. For me it’s just not what I was looking for as it holds mostly cards and I wanted something that could hold my passport too if I needed it to. But if that’s what you’re looking for, this might be something for you.
Like I said, if you’re interested in a RFID blocking wallet to help prevent you from becoming a victim of credit card fraud, there are many more options online, just google. And in the name of safety; make sure the connections are secure when you buy a wallet online 😉 (or anything for that matter!!)
Images Courtesy of Pacsafe.com
