This past week has been full of the economic shut down occurring in the US with one of the largest and oldest banks going bust this week. One of the biggest investment banks on wall street that has been around for eighty five years has now been reduced to nothing. The Bank of England and the Federal Reserve having trying to doll out cash in order to unblock the credit markets as well. So while Easter may have been going on this weekend the news is still dominated by the crash of the US bank and the need to help strengthen the economy.

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Identity Theft and Disposable Credit Card Numbers

Of the identity theft cases reported in 2007 23 percent were actually a credit card account. The other identity thefts did not involve fraudulent credit card accounts for the identity theft. Part of that 23 percent was also unauthorized new accounts. Other fraud included utility accounts at 18 percent, employment at 14 percent, government benefits fraud 11 percent, loan fraud 5 percent, and other forms of bank fraud at 13 percent. Identity theft is one of the most common forms of fraudulent activities that no one has been able to put a complete stop to.

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FTC Fraud

The FTC Fraud log is part of the protection offered against fraud for your credit card account. While this is an important feature you are not one hundred percent protected. In fact the merchant could turn out to be the fraudster or someone could steal your identity and set up accounts in your name. These are very common. In fact two thirds of the complaints to the Federal Trade Commission have been about consumer rip offs by the merchant.

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Disposable Credit Card Number

The disposable credit card number plan is not yet popular. The technology has actually been around for the last seven years, but many of the merchants and consumers have yet to use the actual design. The credit card company is able to take the random number supplied by the merchant and link it to the actual credit card holder without the hacker or eavesdropper stealing the personal information.

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Consumers have a right to be worried about their credit cards with the rising amount of fraud around the country, and knowing this many of the credit card issuers are trying to develop new ways to protect their consumers. Each time you have to give out your number to a phone agent or web site you are probably worried about credit card fraud reaching you. Security experts in the credit card field are trying to develop disposable credit card numbers.

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You as the consumer need to be very aware of the fees you can be charged on your credit card while you are overseas. It was discovered recently that about 686 million pounds in total is charged by banks for overseas transactions. This discovery is urging many of the consumers to understand these charges and protect themselves against further charges. Nine banks have been found to charge for every debit card purchase made out of the UK. The average of this amount is 1.19 pounds or 318 million pounds in total.

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HSBC has launched a green credit card that will be released in April 2008. The card is going to allow any of the card holders to put money towards environmental protection. Whenever a card holder makes a purchase a percentage of what they spend is donated to programs like building green roofs at certain schools. The green credit card is going to make it simple for consumers to be a part of environmental awareness. Even the card is going to be special in the actual creation. Rather than being of normal plastic it is made of PET G, which is a chlorine free material. They are also providing on information regarding the card in electronic format so that you don’t receive monthly statements or other extra paper through the mail wasting trees.

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Credit card fraud is up in the USA. The Federal Trade Commission is said that 1 in 4 identity fraud crimes is credit card related. Of course credit card fraud is not the only type of idnetity fraud. The other 75% of identity fruad is made up of a whole host of ingenius ways for criminals to get hold of your financial details to steal your money.

This type of crime is often used by criminals to fund other types of ileagal businesses such as drug trafficing and dealing. Also it is supected many terrorists use this type of crime to fund their activities. Although the extent of identity theft crime being used by terrorists is unknown and there are differences in opinions regarding this.

It is still very difficult to get credit of any sort, but this is especially true of the credit card companies. In recent months it has been extremely difficult for anyone to get a credit card since last year. Despite the offers of over 200 credit cards with zero percent interest in the past few years there are now only 24 cards offering that zero percent interest to their customers. The smart consumer can still get a little help in the credit card department with bargains during this time though according to Defaqto. There are numerous areas that credit card companies are trying to help out the consumer with.

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Halifax is now being looked at for their recent practices. In a news release it was found that Halifax has made the decision to fine their customers for not using their credit cards and staying out of debt. HBOS has decided to impose a fine for 25 pounds on consumers who have not been using their cards. HBOS made 5.7 billion pounds last year as the fourth largest bank in the UK. Despite these profits they are now looking for more ways to earn a little cash. The company claims that they need to charge customers for not using their credit cards in the last 12 months, however some customers have reported that they have been fined for not using their card in 11 months.

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