Issues to be Cared for Card Utilization

Issues to be Cared for Card Utilization

  • What You Should Do When Your Card is Lost or Stolen?

    • Call and inform your bank immediately and request your card to be canceled. Save the phone numbers of your bank to your phone in order to call your bank quickly in such urgent cases.
    • When you notice that your card is stolen or lost, call your bank that issued the card and ensure that your card is cancelled.
    • If your identity card, driver’s license, passport, etc. were also lost or stolen with your credit cards, you must certainly inform police or prosecutor’s office and have an official report, issued by them, in order to prevent fake applications.
  • Things that you must Do When Your Card is Retained by ATM

    • Immediately apply to the branch or your bank.
    • Never accept the offers of other persons to help you there.
    • In such cases, your responsibility is limited with 150 TL of expenditures that were made out of your knowledge until 24 hours before your notification. If you want, you can make insurance for this risk from your bank.
  • Protection of Password Details

    • Do not select your birth date, identity card number or any other easily guessable number, such as 1234, as your PIN.
    • Never share your card PIN with anyone, including the bank’s staff. Never write down your card PIN to anywhere. Instead, you can memorize it and minimize your risk.
    • Never share your PIN and personal details with the persons, who are claiming that he/she is calling you from the bank.
    • If you have forgotten your PIN, call your bank to renew your card.
    • If you have more than one card, try not to use same PIN for all of them.
    • Never reply to e-mails that ask your credit card number, PIN or identity details except for online shopping websites. Banks never perform any PIN related transaction via e-mail.
  • Protection of Card Details

    • Avoid shopping with your credit card at websites other than secure ones or with the computers that do not belong to you, such as web cafés.
    • After making your payment via POS machines with your debit/credit card, don’t forget to receive your card back.
    • Review the sales receipt issued by the merchant for shopping made with credit card and check that the information written thereon (shopping date, cardholder, shopping amount) are correct.
    • Destroy your expired credit card after erasing its number and making it not possible to be used by anyone.
    • If your new credit card does not arrive until the specified date, it might be stolen, call your bank immediately and ask the status of your card.
    • After your card is delivered by courier companies, never give your card back to any person that has introduced himself as a courier for any reason.
    • In case of sale by mail/phone and online transactions, for which your credit card is not required to be passed through any POS machine, the number and expiration date of your credit card will be enough, therefore fraudulency risk is high. If you are shopping through these channels, prefer reliable companies.
    • You must be very careful for the security of your credit card details when you shop online through computers in public places, such as web cafes, and in crowded places.
  • Protection of Identity Details

    • Be careful against knowledge thieves that may try to search your waste bins. Tear the documents that contain personal details, such as account statements, bank slips, ATM slips, credit card applications or their copies, insurance forms, credit offers, that you will junk so as to ensure that they cannot be read.
    • Do not leave documents that contain your personal details at places that everyone can reach easily.
    • Be careful during account statement periods. If your account statements are not arriving on time, follow them up from your bank. Any account statement that you have not received might mean that your identity is stolen and your address is changed.
    • If there is any change in your details, such as your address, phone, office, etc. that you provided when applying for a card, you should notify your bank within 15 days.
    • If you haven’t initiated a communication and you are not sure about the person contacting with you by phone, e-mail or web, do not share your personal information and card details.
    • Never reply to e-mails that ask your credit card number, PIN or identity details except for online shopping websites. Banks never perform any transaction related PINs and never ask your personal information via e-mail.
    • Your personal (private) details must not be shared in social media applications, the security settings of applications must be defined properly, you must be very careful and selective for the persons that you don’t know but you are going to add to your account, and you must not open the links in suspicious messages since they can spread viruses.
    • Operating systems of computers, tablets or smartphones that you are using must be updated and they must certainly be protected with a firewall.
  • Warnings for Account Statements and Payments
    • You must follow your account statements according to account cut-off dates.
    • Don’t waste your slips until you receive your account statement and compare your account statements and slips and contact immediately with your bank if there is any transaction that does not belong to you.
    • If your account statement does not arrive due to a delay in postal services, you should issue an order to your bank for regular submission of your credit card account statement to an e-mail or fax number in order not to skip any payment. You should also note down your last payment date without waiting to receive your account statement and pay at least minimum payment amount until the payment date.
    • If you already have an automatic payment instruction for the said debt, you should have enough balance in your account to ensure that the instructed payment is made.
    • If there is any change in the address that you notified previously for receiving account statements, you must notify your bank about this change within 15 days.
    • If you need, you can use your credit card also to withdraw money.
    • However interest is accrued for withdrawn cash. These interests vary between the banks and both interest rate and interest calculation method are explained to consumers in credit card statements.
    • No commission is required to be paid to use credit cards in member merchants of Visa and MasterCard. If you encounter with such a request, you certainly must not pay any additional fee and notify Customer Services Department of the credit card issuer bank in written and give the name and address of that merchant.
    • You can use Customer Service departments of the banks, which provide service for 7×24, for your problems related with credit cards and debts.
  • Warnings for Online Shopping

    • When you are shopping online, security of the website must be ensured by national/international certificates.
    • Also your card must be issued by a bank, which is a member of security system of national/international card institutions.
    • Even the bank’s logo and name is being used, you must not reply to e-mails and websites that are requesting your personal details.
    • It might be risky to download files with extensions, such as .exe, .com, .vbs, .jpeg from unsecure websites.
    • You must install antivirus software to your computer, at which you use your credit card, as a precaution against virus threats that are increasing in virtual world.
    • You must be very careful for the security of your credit card details when you shop through computers in public places, such as web cafes, and in crowded places.