living life vicariously through my credit card

Because of fraud (see below) I have to get a new credit card number. I’m really bad at remembering to pay bills, so I have set up auto credit card charging of almost all of them. That makes this transition a major pain in the ass.

Ideally, I would be able to generate a unique credit card number for each payee, so that stolen info can be quickly isolated. Sadly the world doesn’t work like this (US cards don’t even have chips in them!). My solution is to order two different cards on my account; I will use one exclusively for all my recurring payments (phone, cable, power, etc.) , and the other for all other transactions. That way, if I ever lose my card or need to get a new one, I won’t have to log on to 15 different places to change my card number.

Fraud:

It seems as though every time I’m travelling internationally, my credit card company gets worried about some “suspicious” international transactions and disables my card. This despite the fact that I purchased the tickets to this location on their card. They then try to call and alert me to this, but of course my phone is usually off to avoid usurious roaming charges. This leads to awkward “sorry sir, your card has been declined” moments.

Last week, however, for the first time I can think of, the automated credit card fraud detection system actually (kind of) worked. Someone, using a physical card my card’s info on it, went on a mini shopping spree in the Chicago area, starting with a $0.25 charge at a parking garage and culminating in a few ~$800 purchases at a grocery store(!). Since I still had my card in my physical possession, it seems likely that either a skimmer or some online leak of my card info occurred. It’s really kind of sad, cause I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago, and it seems as though my credit card has beaten me there! Living life vicariously through my credit cards, fun as it may seem, is a bit depressing.