Not full out I.D. theft, no. But I, and many others across the country, had a fraudulent charge of $12.95 appear on a CC that I had used for an online purchase. I researched it at the time and can give you some URLs about this scam, if you like.
It's the only time I've had an adverse event in many years of online transactions. My approach is this:
1. I have one low limit CC reserved strictly for online purchases.
2. I have another low limit CC for automatic charges, like my server fee, DVD rentals, cell phone, etc.
3. I keep my CC receipts and balance the accounts each month. IOW, I actually read my bills.
4. Once every four months I run a credit check on myself and my husband. You get one free credit check a year with each of the three major reporting companies, which means you can do three per year.
5. I've activated the alert feature on my CC accounts to notify me of any purchase over $X, via e-mail.
Many CC companies offer floating card numbers for online purchases and I do use that. I never have my personal information saved by a vendor, and I don't do financial transactions on a public computer.
This has worked well for me, knock on wood.
Anna
