Recently, I misplaced my wallet. I used the word “misplaced” because I was not sure if I had lost it or had simply kept it somewhere and forgot. I noticed my wallet was missing in the morning, and I had last seen my wallet the previous evening. While I found the wallet in the house itself after a couple of hours of frantic searching, many thoughts crossed my mind during those couple of hours.
My wallet had multiple debit and credit cards. The first concern was that there shouldn’t be any unauthorized transactions on the card. My phone was still with me and only I knew the card PIN. Hence, domestic online transactions and card swipe transactions were not possible. However, the cards could still be used for tap-and-pay transactions and for payments on foreign websites. Such transactions do not require OTP or card PIN.
A source of relief was that I had not received any transaction notifications or OTP requests on my mobile, which meant no one had tried to use the credit cards. And it had been 12 hours since I had last seen/felt my wallet. This meant two things: Either the card was at home or in the hands of a responsible person, who didn’t mean to misuse the card.
While I should have been more careful with my wallet, here are a few things I normally do to prevent fraudulent transactions on my cards.
What Do I Normally Do?
- I have installed mobile banking apps of all the issuing banks on my phone. This allows me to quickly block the card temporarily or permanently. The mobile apps also allow me to quickly enable/disable or set/adjust transaction limits for any specific type of transaction (merchant, tap-and-pay, online, ATM). The regulations permit card users to enable/disable or set limits for following types of transactions (separately for domestic and international). Thus, there are 8 settings in total. You can also use such settings to enhance protection for your credit card.
- Merchant payments (swipe transactions)
- Online
- ATM
- Tap-and-pay
- I keep tap-and-pay payments either disabled or set at a low limit. You don’t need to enable tap-and-pay for all your credit cards. After all, you may have a preferred credit/debit card for merchant payments. Enable tap-and-pay only for such credit cards that you use frequently and set a lower limit. The Reserve Bank has capped the per-transaction limit at Rs 5,000 for tap-and-pay payments. You can set the limit lower.
- I keep international transactions on credit cards disabled. There is no need to enable them unless you are travelling abroad. If you are travelling abroad, you can enable transactions temporarily. Similarly, you can enable transactions temporarily for any purchases on foreign websites. For any subscription payments on foreign websites, you can keep the transaction limit for foreign online transactions just enough to meet those subscription payments.
Remember the fraudster does not know what transaction limits you have set. He/she may try a transaction beyond the threshold limit. And for each failed/successful transaction, the bank must send you an SMS/email. Such a message will tell you that you have lost your card, and it is in the wrong hands. You must quickly move to block the card. Hence, setting up such transaction limits can help you buy time and prevent fraud. Or at least reduce the impact of fraud.
What Should You Do When You Find the Cards Missing?
When you find your wallet or credit cards missing, the first step should be to temporarily block your credit or debit card. And the quickest way to do this is through the mobile app. Alternatively, you can call customer care to report the loss of the card, and immediately block the card. This is because your liability depends on the timing of your communication to the bank.
In cases where the fraud has happened due to negligence by the customer (and I assume the loss of credit/debit card would be deemed negligence by the customer), you must bear the entire loss until you report the fraudulent transaction to the bank. Any loss arising after you have reported the loss of card/fraud shall be borne by the bank.
I Had an Additional Problem
I was unsure whether I had indeed lost my wallet. Since I had not received any OTP or transaction SMS over the past many hours, the card was most likely at the house only. I didn’t want to cancel the cards and seek replacement as that would have been a lot of hassle. Hence, I didn’t cancel/block the card permanently.
Additionally, I had set up auto-debit for various subscription payments and a couple of those payments were due in a couple of days. Hence, blocking the card temporarily was also a problem.
Here is what I did.
- For the cards (both credit and debit) that I had not used for subscription, I blocked those cards temporarily.
- For the cards that had subscription payments, I disabled all the transactions except online transactions but reduced the transaction limit for online transactions to just above the payment amount.
Fortunately, I found my wallet and had to reverse everything that I had done. Had I not found the wallet in the next couple of hours, I would have simply blocked the cards permanently and sought replacement cards from the respective banks.
Take Caution, Be Prepared
To act fast in such cases, you must know the rules and should be versed with the apps. If you do not know how to disable/block your credit card from the mobile app, installing the mobile app is no use in such cases. Hence, do not wait to learn until you lose your credit card. Browse the mobile app and check how to enable/disable credit/debit cards and set limits for various types of transactions.
There is no excuse for being careless with your personal belongings, especially your wallet. I was entirely at fault for not taking better custody of my wallet. Remember, I found out that the wallet was missing in the morning. Fraudulent transactions could have happened late in the night while I was asleep and couldn’t have reacted to SMSs about fraud transactions. Hence, I was just lucky that my recklessness didn’t cost me anything apart from the stress. I may not be so lucky next time.
However, with the precautionary steps I took, knowledge of the rules, and comfort with the mobile banking apps helped me act swiftly after I found the wallet was missing and prevented me from panicking. You should also get comfortable navigating around the mobile banking app.
And yes, be more careful with your wallet and phone. Losing your wallet is a problem, but if you lose both wallet and mobile phone, it can be a nightmare.