Best Tip To Avoid Being Scammed, Only Use A Credit Card

Jan

Best Tip To Avoid Being Scammed, Only Use A Credit Card

Tagged Under : Card, Credit Card

Credit cards have their drawbacks. People can get into serious debt if they are not careful. Banks can pull all sorts of tricks and traps if you let them. On the other hand, insisting on using a credit card is the only way to ensure that you will not be scammed.

It Can Happen To You

It doesn’t matter how savvy you think you are, anyone can be taken advantage of. For example, look at this case where one of the travel writers the New York Times got scammed by a fake ad for a vacation rental. You don’t even have to read to the end to figure out that he would never have been taken had he insisted on using his credit card.

I have been taken advantage of myself in the past. I had some furniture moved, and like many moving companies, they only would accept cash or money orders. The scumbag movers wouldn’t actually move the furniture without being paid extra, on top of the already pre-paid rate. Some of the furniture never arrived and was never found. I had no recourse other than the courts. By the time I received a judgment, the company disappeared.

If I had it to do over again, like the New York times writer, I would only do business with a company that is willing to accept a credit card. They could still try to scam you, but you can always issue charge back for goods not received or services not rendered. Any outfit that gets hit with more than their fare share of chargebacks will soon find themselves without a credit card processor, so most merchants are legit by process of elimination.

The Unmentioned Benefit

Banks will plaster their ads with their low annual fees, great rewards, and other benefits. They ignore what might be the single most valuable feature of a credit card, the protection of a chargeback. So powerful is this feature, that I have often found the mere threat of a chargeback sufficient to compel the merchant to do the right thing. The threat is so potent, that I have only actually issued a handful of charge backs in my lifetime.

In the case of the New York Times travel writer, he was really not going to save much money had the vacation property turned out to be legit. It will often cost you slightly more up front to deal with a more reputable merchant who takes credit cards. To do otherwise, may cost you much more when the person on the other end of the transaction fails to deliver.

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