Your holiday can be happy and bright, but tag those credit cards

DURING the holiday season, many of us will be purchasing gifts for friends and family. Along with the holiday shoppers, there will be another group of people out there: thieves.

One item that many thieves love to get their hands on is credit cards. A stolen card can result in a thief helping himself to gifts for himself and his friends, with the added benefit that he will never have to pay for any of it. It is left to the victim to have to sort out their real purchases from the false ones, report them to their credit card company and restore their good credit.

Credit card thieves also have the notion that no one gets hurt when they use a stolen card, since the victim only has to report the stolen card to their credit company and the charges are taken off the bill. So, the thief reasons, the victim doesn't really lose any money. They just have the hassle of contesting the charges, and the card company makes good on the purchases.

However, anyone who has ever had a credit card stolen can tell you that the whole process is not a pleasant one to deal with and the effects are long lasting. Repairing your credit is not an easy task. A thief can attempt to justify their actions however they wish, but the victim still suffers in the end.

One way that you can try to prevent your cards from being used fraudulently, if they get stolen, is to take a simple step that will take only a few minutes of your time.

Take all your credit cards out and turn them over to the side where the signature bar is located. Most people simply write their name on the tape and forget the whole thing. Instead of putting your name there, take a black, fine-tip, permanent maker pen and write "CHECK ID" in that space. If you already signed your card, you can write over your signature and the card is still good.

Putting those two words on the back of your card should serve as a flag to a store cashier to ask for your picture ID to verify that the person using the card is, in fact, its rightful owner.

If Hawaii merchants would adopt a "no exceptions" policy that all cashiers are required to ask for your ID when you use a credit card, it might reduce the number of fraudulent charges being put on cards in this state during the holiday shopping season.

If all merchants adopted such a policy, without any exceptions allowed, credit cards would not be such a lucrative item for thieves to help themselves to and attempt to enjoy the holiday season at the expense of others. As a customer, you should talk to the store manager if you make a credit card purchase and the cashier did not ask for your identification.

Remember, put "CHECK ID" on the signature line of all your credit and debit cards, so the only bills you have to worry about will be your own.

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