Losing a credit card is a nightmare for everyone who owns one. You might have dropped it or worst is someone have stolen it. It can cause anxiety to the owner thinking that they might have used your card already, so you need to act fast. Especially this time that many of us is already using a credit or debit card. If in case you got in that situation, here’s what to do after you’ve lost a card.
Here’s What to Do After You’ve Lost a Card
First, check your account history right away
The first thing you should do once you found out that your card is missing is to check your account history. Check your payment history if there are any transaction you don’t recognize. If you found our that there are unauthorized activity in your account, take note of the details.
Second, contact your bank
If you confirmed that there are fraudulent activity on your account, you must contact your bank as soon as you can. Let them know whether your card is lost or stolen. Give all the details that you’ve collected from the transactions to the bank so they can check it on their end.
Request to deactivate or freeze your card
Your credit card provider will surely provide you a solution to your problem but the best option to do is to deactivate or freeze your card. If you think you just have misplaced your card then the best option is to freeze it temporarily but if you’re sure that your card was stolen then request for a deactivation right away to avoid any continuous fraudulent activity.
Cancel any automatic billing
Once your card is deactivated, all automatic billing will not go through successfully which means that you might get late payment fees for you bills. To avoid that happening, notify the companies that charge your account for recurring payments.
Lastly, follow up
Once you’ve done all the things that were mentioned above the waiting game starts. Usually, a bank will investigate your card if there are any fraudulent activities within 10 business days. After that, you can contact your bank once again and then ask for a follow up regarding your account. Once everything is fixed then you don’t have to worry anymore.
As a final point, if in case this happens to you, you should act fast. Remember that if you don’t report the issue right away the theif might drain your card and you don’t want that to happen. Let’s always keep an eye to our card to avoid this happening.
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