for credit card holders
 

i don't have any, i use a debit card only (and banks are encouraging credit over debit card, saying it has more fraud protection. i think they encourage because there's not much money to be made from debit cards).
at any rate, just saw this article and thought i'd link to it, considering it's the largest shopping season of the year.

http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/201...y-charges?lite

There's a really, really good documentary about the credit card industry, "Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders." Highly recommend. The ending story made me cry a bit.

It came out in 2006, and in the documentary, there are excerpts from an interview with this really smart professor. I remember at the time thinking, "wow, this woman really knows how to explain things well, and she's really interesting to listen to." Which can be a bit unusual for talking heads in documentaries.

Nice to see her joining the Senate this January.

Auto renewals should be made illegal in my opinion. They often dont have a way to cancel online, you need to call and speak to someone and good luck trying to find the number to call. It is usually on the site but it is a game of where's Waldo trying to find it.

You would think a debit card would be safer because you use a pin, but that has not been my experience. Had to close my bank account twice because someone was charging things on my debit card which I hardly ever use. I use an American Express card most of the time. Only problem I ever had with it was when a restaurant tried to charge me $11,000 for lunch. Waiter just punched it in wrong and didn't know how to fix it. Had to go back later and let the restuarant manager straighten it out.

We had a waiter scan my husbands card and made fraudulent charges, but the card was replaced, and the money, with no problems