Should I collect receipts after paying with a card?
Keeping a receipt does allow you to verify that the expected amount was charged/debited it also can help when you need to return an item.  Regarding double charging, the credit card companies look for that. If the same card is used at the same vendor for the same exact amount in a short period of time the credit card company will flag the transaction. They assume either a mistake was made, or fraud is being attempted. The most likely result is that the transaction is denied.  A dishonest vendor can write down the card number, expiration date and CVV number. Then after you leave make up a new transaction for any amount they want. You of course wouldn't have a paper receipt for this fraudulent transaction. The key is reviewing your transaction history every few days: looking for unexpected amounts, locations, or number of transactions. I've seen many people sign a restaurant credit card receipt and walk away.  Easy enough for the wait staff to add a tip and total.  I doubt this is a high risk area compared to others, but in general, why not take the receipt for verification, or in the case of a good that can be returned, the receipt might be needed. "It surely doesn't HURT to keep a receipt. I tend to pile up receipts in my desk drawer, never look at them, and then every few months throw them all out. If a vendor writes a receipt by hand or if the cash register is not tied in to the credit card system, keeping a receipt could give you evidence against mistakes or fraud. Like if the vendor gives you a receipt for $10 and then sends a transaction to the credit card company for $20, you could use the receipt as evidence of the problem. But if the vendor is trying to really cheat you, the most likely thing for him to do is run the legitimate transaction through, and then some time later run a fake transaction. So say today you go to vendor X, buy something for $20, and he bills your credit card $20. Then a few days later he bills you another $100 even though you never came back to the store. Sure, you have a receipt for $20. But you don't have a receipt for the $100 because you never authorized that transaction. Your receipt proves nothing -- presumably you're not disputing the $20. If you complain to the bank or go to the police or whatever, saying, ""Hey look, I don't have a receipt for the $100"" doesn't prove anything. How do they know you didn't just throw it away? It's difficult to prove that you never had such a receipt." It is probably safe to throw away the receipt.  Without a system to process and store receipts, they are of little use. With regards to personal finances I'm guilty of preaching without practicing 100% of the time, but here are some arguments for keeping receipts. To reconcile your statement to receipts before paying the credit card bill  - people make mistakes all the time.  I bet if you have an average volume of transactions, you will find at least one mistake in 12 months. To establish baseline spending and calculate a realistic budget.  So many people will draft  a budget by 'estimating' where their money goes.  When it comes to this chore, I think people are about as honest with themselves as exercise and counting calories.  Receipts are facts. To abide by record keeping requirements for warranty, business, IRS, etc... Personally, the only thing I've caught so far is Bank of America charging me interest when I pay my bill in full every month! "In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as ""- PAYMENT RECEIVED -"", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used."
It sounds like the postage amount was paid to you rather than returned.  If it had been returned and the payment originated on the card, they would have to return it to the card.  If it was processed as a payment, it looks like someone is giving you money.  PayPal can't credit it to the card, as the sender could request a refund.  If PayPal put the money on the card against a previous payment, then they wouldn't be able to refund.   If they add money to your bank account, then they can withdraw it if a refund is required.   One reason that you might get a payment is if you were being reimbursed for spending money outside of PayPal.  If the amount is more than you originally paid, they can't put it on your card.  They can only refund to the card.  They can't deposit to it.   If you don't want to give them your bank account information, you can just wait until the next time you use PayPal and use your balance to pay.  Then you can bill the remainder to your credit card.   If you don't normally use PayPal and just want your money back, you can process a chargeback through your credit card.  Note that this would probably annoy PayPal, as it costs them aggravation and potentially money.  To do this, you must have paid the postage with your credit card originally.  If you spent money outside PayPal and were reimbursed through PayPal, then there's nothing to chargeback.  In that circumstance, you'd have to accept one of their options:  pay with balance or deposit to bank account. A decade ago my main source of overdraft fees was due to the length of time between a purchase and the money actually being drafted out of my account; I just couldn't keep track of my balance at any given point in time without a ledger, which I wasn't going to keep. These days I have my bank account set up to text me whenever I make a purchase, and most of the time I receive that text within two minutes of receiving my receipt. It's much more up to the minute and I can keep easy mental tally.  Plus I'm much better off than I was when I was 20... #dictated I don't see a way that this would make matters worse than just giving them the credit card info... Except that it would make abusing the card easier at some other site (or the bank) if they have a similar (unreasonably weak) security-by-photo test. Still, I'd strongly recommend you use a separate card for this so you can cancel it without disrupting your other credit card uses.  (Actually I'd strongly recommend not doing business with folks who have already demonstrated questionable ethics, but you seem to have made that decision.) I don't use debit cards, but if I did I would review that portion of the statement. I look at my credit card statements pretty closely, and probably catch one or two mistakes or things I want to question every year. I would presume this goes entirely through the credit card network rather than the banking network. I am guessing that it's essentially the same operation as if you had returned something purchased on a card to the store for credit, but I'm not sure whether it really looks like a vendor credit to the network or if it is marked as a different type of transaction. Your simplest option, and probably the only reasonable one, is to dispute the original charge with your bank.  Since you used a debit card and not a credit card, you don't have quite as much protection, but you still can dispute the charge and ask your bank to step in and help.  See this debit card dispute article for more information on disputing a charge for a debit card. You may or may not have a case here, depending on the specifics.  If the merchant accepted your payment without letting you know you should have used paypal, you may have a shot at getting the full refund; but if it was clearly labelled that you should have used paypal, it may be harder. A credit balance can happen any time you have a store return, but paid the bill in full. It's no big deal. Why not just charge the next gas purchase or small grocery store purchase, to cycle it through?  Yes - unused cards can get canceled by the bank, and that can hurt your credit score. In the US anyway. I'm guessing it's the same system or similar in Canada. Visa, Mastercard have very strong consumer protection. I have been wondering about this question for a while but never got around to asking it here: What happens if a retailer knowingly defrauds me? My guess is the first party to ask for help is Visa, Mastercard: a retailer knowingly defrauding you is unlikely to refund you any money. However, slip-ups do happen. If this is a retailer of good repute, they will not only refund you the money but send you a gift card too! Please do followup this post with what helped you in the end, but my guess is, your first (and last) line of defense would be Visa, Mastercard. Anything that would go through the bank would take such a lot of time and effort, that you would be better off writing it off. "To avoid nitpicks, i state up front that this answer is applicable to the US; Europeans, Asians, Canadians, etc may well have quite different systems and rules. You have nothing to worry about if you pay off your credit-card statement  in full on the day it is due in timely fashion. On the other hand, if you routinely carry a balance from month to month or have taken out cash advances, then making whatever payment you want to make that month ASAP will save you more in finance charges than you could ever earn on the money in your savings account. But, if you pay off each month's balance in full, then read the fine print about when the payment is due very carefully: it might say that payments received before 5 pm will be posted the same day, or it might say before 3 pm, or before 7 pm EST, or noon PST, etc etc etc. As JoeTaxpayer says, if you can pay on-line with a guaranteed day for the transaction (and you do it before any deadline imposed by the credit-card company), you are fine.  My bank allows me to write ""electronic"" checks on its website, but a paper check is mailed to the credit-card company. The bank claims that if I specify the due date, they will mail the check enough in advance that the credit-card company will get it by the due date, but do you really trust the USPS to deliver your check by noon, or whatever? Besides the bank will put a hold on that money the day that check is cut. (I haven't bothered to check if the money being held still earns interest or not).  In any case, the bank disclaims all responsibility for the after-effects (late payment fees, finance charges on all purchases, etc) if that paper check is not received on time and so your credit-card account goes to ""late payment"" status.  Oh, and my bank also wants a monthly fee for its BillPay service (any number  of such ""electronic"" checks allowed each month). The BillPay service does include payment electronically to local merchants and utilities that have accounts at the bank and have signed up to receive payments electronically. All my credit-card companies allow me to use their website to authorize them to collect the payment that I specify from my bank account(s). I can choose the day, the amount, and which of my bank accounts they will collect the money from, but I must do this every month. Very conveniently, they show a calendar for choosing the date with the due date marked prominently, and as mhoran_psprep's comment points out, the payment can be scheduled well in advance of the date that the payment will actually be made, that is, I don't need to worry about being without Internet access because of travel and thus being unable to login to the credit-card website to make the payment on  the date it is due. I can also sign up for AutoPay which takes afixed amount/minimum payment due/payment in full (whatever I choose)  on the date due, and this will happen month after month after month  with no further action necessary on my part.  With either choice,  it is up to the card company to collect money from my account on the day specified, and if they mess up, they cannot charge late payment fees or finance charge on new purchases etc.  Also, unlike  my bank, there are no fees for this service. It is also worth noting that many people do not like the idea of the credit-card company withdrawing money from their bank account, and so this option is not to everyone's taste." "First IANAL! This is going to depend on the kind of points. If it's an internal point system that the business is doing on their own, then they may very well, give you that many ""extra"" points. They may really not care. Specially if the cost of the points is low enough. Remember that steak dinner that you paid $60 for only really cost them $2 and that they use $60 worth of points on it.  If the point system is tied to a bank or credit card, then it's far more likely that the ""just use them"" is not the proper answer. The company doing the reimbursing is giving the location $60 and using your points. The points have a much higher value.  With that said, your responsibility is to notify, and follow their rules. So notify them in writing, and use the rewards card as you normally would. If your being honest, then the worst that happens is that your point balance is a little negative (because you spent 100 points but really only had 98 after adjustment).  Most likely, if your being honest, they will just eat the few points over that you went on accident.  If you get an answer in writing to just keep the points, then I guess you know where your daughter's wedding reception will be. Let's hope it's a classy place. Of course, as a 'good' person (or maybe a 'stupid' person), I should call them, (wait 30 minutes in the queue), and then try to explain the issue to the service desk. I actually did that, and the guy thought I am nuts to even call, and told me to 'just use them they are yours now'. I don't feel like calling again and again until I get someone that believes it, just to return them their points. You will want to do this in writing. Email will work, but you really want a paper trail, either way. I could just toss the card and forget about it. However, I had quite some points on it that really belong to me, so that feels like I pay for their fault. There is no need to do this. It's like a bank error. Talk to them and they will give you an answer. In the mean time, do your best to only use the points you actually have. Use them and play stupid. It's not my duty to check their math, right? Probably nobody will ever care (let's keep religious considerations out here). What would be the consequences if they do realize their error some day in the far future? (I understand this borders on a legal question). Nope, don't do this. If you play dumb and spend 5000 points when you know you only have around 100, best case scenario you end up with -4900 points (effectively canceling the benefit of the card). You may also be banned form the program, the location, the network, etc. Worst case scenario they want the monetary value of the points and sue you for it, and the legal fees. It may even be considered fraud.  TL;DR Use your card, but be honest, and handle the mistake in writing." So, my questions: Are payment cards provide sufficient security now? Yes. If so, how is that achieved? Depending on your country's laws, of course. In most places (The US and EU, notably), there's a statutory limit on liability for fraudulent charges. For transactions when the card is not present, proving that the charge is not fraudulent is merchants' task. Why do online services ask for all those CVV codes and expiration date   information, if, whenever you poke the card out of your wallet, all of   its information becomes visible to everyone in the close area? What   can I do to secure myself? Is it? Try to copy someones credit card info next time you're in the line at the local grocery store. BTW, some of my friends tend to rub off the CVV code from the cards   they get immediately after receiving; nevertheless, it could have   already been written down by some unfair bank employee. Rubbish. I would take each of these items and any others and consider how you would count it as an expense in the other direction. If you have an account for parking expenses or general transportation funds, credit that account for a refund on your parking. If you have an account for expenses on technology purchases, you would credit that account if you sell a piece of equipment as you replace it with an upgrade. If you lost money (perhaps in a jacket) how would you account for the cash that is lost? Whatever account would would subtract from put a credit for cash found. "The service processors are providing is absorbing the risk.  The flow goes, roughly (and I say roughly because it's a complicated process):  1. You swipe/insert your card at Bob's House of Eatery and get charged $10 for a bucket of ramen or something. 2. The device you swipe your card in, (""a terminal"") encodes the card number, amount, and some other transaction details and contacts a ""Payment Gateway"".   3. The gateway decodes the blob of data, and is responsible for determining the issuing financial institution (""Chase"", ""US Bank"", etc.). 4. The gateway contacts the above and asks, ""Can card # 555.. charge $10?"" 5. The gateway also sends this answer to the processor.   5. The processor _immediately_ proxies that yes/no back to the merchant's terminal. 6. The processor, having a transaction ID, and a yes/no, sends the response to the merchant's systems so your receipt can be printed or order processed, and so on.   7. Meanwhile, the processor has a transaction ID and is busy figuring out things like interchange fees.  The amount depends on a whole host of things, and almost everyone involved in the process wants their cut -- the bank, the gateway, the processor, and it all depends on the type of card, customer, rewards, and so on.   8. At the end of the day, week, whatever, the processor collects money from the issuing financial institution and is responsible for giving the right amount -- less fees -- to the merchant.    The processor here also absorbs the risk and costs for things like chargebacks, as almost everyone in that chain (gateway, issuing bank) want their pound of flesh for a chargeback, and often the processor doesn't pass that full cost on to the merchant and instead does some risk analysis to determine if they think this merchant is going to be okay to do business with.    That's what you're paying for." "In the UK, using a credit card adds a layer of protection for consumers. If something goes wrong or you bought something that was actually a scam, if you inform the credit card company with the necessary documents they  will typically clear the balance for that purchase (essentially the burden of 'debt' is passed to them and they themselves will have to chase up the necessary people). Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act  I personally use my credit card when buying anything one would consider as  ""consumer spending"" (tvs, furniture ect). I then pay off the credit card immediately. This gives me the normal benefits of the credit card (if you get cashback or points) PLUS the additional consumer credit protection on all my purchases.  This, in my opinion is the most effective way of using your credit card." You're right that someone who, say, photographed the front of your card at the store could use it to make some online purchases. Schemes like Visa's 3-D Secure provide additional online security by having you enter your password on the issuer's website, but they aren't common yet in the US. But as littleadv says, you as the cardholder generally aren't liable for fraud (except $50 in some cases). Just be sure to check your statement monthly and notify the issuer of any fraud within 60 days. To issuers, fraud losses are fairly predictable, and the cost is acceptable.