 TITLE: Steps to Take if You Are a Victim of Credit Card Fraud CONTENT: Look Out for the Common Types of Credit Card Fraud\n--------------------------------------------------\nCredit card fraudsters are eager to use new technologies in their schemes for ferreting out credit card numbers and PINs, adding to tried-and-true methods as old as credit cards themselves.\nCredit card fraud methods include:\n*   **Card theft**: Snatching a card from a restaurant table, bar or wallet (or just grabbing an entire wallet or purse) is a classic way to get access to someone's credit card. Swiping newly issued cards from mailboxes is a variation on this ploy. If your card goes missing, or if you're notified that you should have received a card that never arrived, inform the card issuer immediately.\n*   **Account takeover**: In this approach, a criminal contacts your card issuer and uses your personal information to change access PINs, passwords, mailing address and the like so that they control your account and you can no longer get into it. Depending on how often you use your card, this can take a while to notice, and even longer to sort out with the card issuer. Some credit card companies enable setup of a verbal password that isn't documented anywhere else to prevent this form of theft.\n*   **Cloned cards**: Devices called \"skimmers\" that fit over card readers on gas pumps and at retail sales terminals can allow thieves to grab your card number when you swipe your card, then make a duplicate for their illicit use. EMV chip\\-equipped cards have made this process much more difficult.\n*   **Card-not-present theft**: This refers to the fraudulent use of a credit card account that doesn't require possession of a physical card. Commonly a method used to make online purchases, it requires only that the thief knows your name, account number and the card's security code. In recent years, millions of users' information has been exposed through data breaches at retailers and other companies that maintain large card-number databases, and illicit websites traffic in lists of card-user data. END