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The amex gold card is pretty good with its reward points mechanism. I get 1000 points every month (worth about 250/bucks). However, it cannot be used as the main card as amex simply does not get accepted everywhere. I have a few places like hp pumps, and a couple of regular places I use the card but I ALWAYS have my visa as a backup.

Contrary to what some have posted I found the amex customer care to be superb.

For the renewal fees, I usually never paid it because I always take the chance of telling them to cancel the card and till now they have always refunded the renewal fees and let me keep the card. YMMV. Not much point if you pay the annual fees though in my opinion..

Never used it internationally.

I have an Amex Gold Card, the reason I got it because it is a charge card and not a credit card and really useful for my needs.
But I am planning to surrender it as it is no way better than other cards available in the market.
Please keep in mind that you will have to pay the entire amount in full every month and there will be no minimum balance to be paid in Amex gold card, else you will be hit with severe financial charges.

While all these are good as thumb rules, you should also remember certain things.

First of all, the CC brands (MC/Visa) have a set of rules to be followed by merchants who save card details. As long as the merchant follows those, I find the ability to store card details as quite convenient (especially since I buy stuff from my mobile also these days). It might be a nuisance to you, in which case you can vote with your feet, but it is a matter of convenience to others.

Second thing to remember is that not just e-commerce merchants, but others also do the same. If the salesperson swipes your card on the POS machine chances are that the vendor stores your card details. Examples are big retail companies (Reliance, More, Croma etc.) with offline presence. Co-branded card numbers are also used as loyalty programme membership numbers (Shopper's Stop, for example). If you are worried about the merchant storing the card details, then you should be worried about all these.

Third, the largest source of data breach is the end user (like it happened in the case reported here - TeamViewer left open on the Internet). Merchant leakages are few and far between, but due to their size and brand, they get more press coverage.


You seem to require a nanny state for your safety. I'd have felt a lot better about the RBI if they had asked Uber to not offer their model unless the customer explicitly signed into it. This leaves the decision-making to the end user. RBI has no business breaking someone's legally sustainable revenue model. As it stands, currently subscription services cannot be used as a revenue model in India due to this idiotic rule by RBI.

Some good suggestions there. In fact, I believe some banks offer low-credit limit, low duration (one-time, even) virtual card numbers purely designed for online usage.

• I keep randomly generated passwords for my financial accounts/transactions.
• These are stored in Password Safe (safe stored in Dropbox) which is Open Source and has clients for Android. The Android client registers itself as an input service provider so it is quite easy to use it on the device.
• On every site where it is supported (Gmail & Dropbox, mainly) I use TOTP-based 2-factor authentication.
• My devices (Nexus phone/tab and laptop) all have full-disk encryption so even in the case of theft, data loss risk is minimized. Second factor is face recognition on Android and fingerprint on laptop.

I follow all precautions with my Credit Card, but I still ended up being a fraud victim once a couple years ago. Could I have done something better? Apparently yes!

100% security is a myth, and it's always just a matter of degrees of precaution. Do all you can and most importantly, know your options when something like this happens, instead of being paranoid and giving yourself up to unnecessary inconvenience on the rare chance you may be victimized.

In my instance, I reported the fraud transactions to the bank immediately, and in the few minutes I was on call with my CC provider, more transactions came in. They blocked the card, and the procedure to report and reclaim the amounts concerned was painless. Most banks provide fraud liability protection these days, on both debit and credit cards.

Thanks for your opinions, binand. Each one is entitled to one and I am not forcing anyone to follow my set of precautions. I shared what I follow. I liked your "Full data encryption" point.
1) Fully agree, saving card details is a convenience for many. For me, its scary. I may be in the minority. My fears came true when Extended Stay America in US charged me for 2 days AFTER checkout. Lucky that I noticed and followed up for refund. What if I didnt. :-)
2) I am a transaction based guy, and dont like/allow anyone saving card details. Merchants cant swipe my card because my magnetic strip is always scratched/unusable :-) All my cards are chip based and merchants who dont have chip enabled machines (pretty rare with big establishments) dont deserve my business. I pay them by cash if I find a mouth watering deal.
3) Yes, Ratnadeep Supermarket (Hyderabad) swipes and stores the credit card details. I go to Vijetha (coincidentally better deals/rates/card usage for 50 rs. Yes, as low as 50 rs) where CHIP card is default and no monkeying around with storing card details. I gave it just as an example to illustrate that many businesses exist which follow my transaction based approach.
4) I am proponent of free markets but Uber was asked to follow the law of the land. Yes, if it didnt make sense/nuisance for many, they can petition RBI to change it.
It is a business case that "saving card" is the norm and I am in the minority and companies may even dont cater to people like me. Its fine. I will pursue alternate payment models.
5) "http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Global-gang-skims-Indian-credit-card-industry-of-Rs-30-crore-in-2-months/articleshow/18357670.cms" forced Indian banks for chip cards. There were many gaping holes/mistakes on the customers front and basic precautions could have made the issue less severe.

Finally, we can aim for 90-95% safety/precaution but Crime LEADS the law. Nothing is foolproof. Enjoy credit card usage and post good offers.
Thanks everyone

Maybe you aren't aware of this, but hotels are among the merchant categories that are allowed to authorize more than what the expected cost of their service is. That is, they needn't have access to your card number stored (to do what they did).

Here's a short writeup on this: https://localwiki.org/davis/Authorization_hold

Binand, yes I know the concept and pre-authorization is used commonly in travel industry. I have been a credit card user for past 14 years, since my student days (Yes, earlier ICICI bank used to offer credit card for students. It is NOT add-on-card, NOT against FD, it is a credit card in its own right for students. Great, ICICI bank was/is a pioneer on many fronts. Of late, I had bitter irrevocable experiences with them and closed all relationship). Coming back to the point, what happened in my case is NOT whats in the link you posted. I'll explain.
I checked out on a day X asking ExtendedStay to finalize the bill. I settled the bill, got the final bill stating no dues. I insisted that they remove my card details from their system and they assured that they will do it, they cant charge as I had already settled the bill and checked out. All fine.
After X+5 days, they charged an amount equivalent of 2 days ! Yes, after X+5 days. That too, I wonder how they did when they promised they cant charge me AFTER checkout
I did not notice it for 10 days after X+5 days (partly due to lack of time, trust in US credit cards)
After noticing it, I raised the issue first with the hotel, and then with the bank as there was a delay from the hotel.
After some days, I got my refund.
ExtendedStay America sent an apology email stating it was a mistake at their end.
This is what had happened. So nothing is foolproof, customer should be vigilant either in America or India or anywhere.
In Telugu, we say "Adusu tokkanela, kaalu kadaganela". Loosely translated, it means Why step in mud and later struggle cleaning it.
In short, prevention is better than cure.

Used CC in Colombo for pre authorization. Settled bill with cash. Been 10 days now, the blocked amount is yet to be released.

Hotel says they had sent request for cancellation on that day itself.

How long does it usually take?

Usually takes about 4 to 5 days. But 10 days is quite long. Talk to the Hotel once again and also to your CC Provider and tell them about the issue. Hopefully it will get resolved soon !

The hotel said it will be cleared in 4-5 days as well. Sent them a mail today and got a reply stating that it will be released tomorrow.

:)

DO YOU KNOW ?
The card, by rule, will remain active until the last day of the month in which the expiration date falls, but don’t be surprised if it continues to work for months thereafter, particularly if it is being used for automatic monthly payments.

See below for more details...

http://www.cardhub.com/edu/credit-ca...piration-date/

Some serious opinions and conversations going out over there.

Let me make the situation a lil lighter with my current situation :)

8:00 a.m. : After going for my morning run, I purchase some food items
9:00 a.m. : I come home and drop off all the items
10:00 a.m. : I start to move out for a hospital visit; can't find my purse. I look all over the place (unfortunately not that detailed a search). Not wanting to be late for the appointment, we decide to go ahead. My parents go on panic mode assuming my pocket was picked earlier or I dropped the purse somewhere.
10:30 a.m. : I call up ICICI Customer care and block my debit and credit cards. As part of the process they re-issue a new card.
1:30 p.m. : I return back home and resume the search. And find the purse lying upstairs under my running clothes.

I call up CC to unblock the cards (they DO have the option) - and am told that the process is irreversible!!!

And hence I end up without any usable cards (atleast for a week), but a wiser man. Patience is the mother of all virtues, literally!

On a side note, I am in a weird predicament for my cc re-issue. The registered address is of my house in Pune which is rented out. I am currently in Chennai. ICICI won't issue the card to a branch, and I'm sure the courier firm won't give the card to my tenant. Anyone aware of any quick workaround on this? The other option is to update the address to my current residence which is a temporary address - I don't want to do that.

ninjatalli, I feel you did the right thing by blocking your cards. But I understand your predicament.
See if an authorization letter from you works and someone can collect it on your behalf in Pune.
See if it can be routed to an alternate address

Hi Folks, want to cancel HDFC Bank credit card. Customer care is asking me to write a request letter and post to their Thiruvanmaiyur, Chennai address. Is it correct process and did anyone cancelled like this?
Posting a hard copy sounds so 1990's :-)

Yes. Even I had done the same thing to cancel my corporate credit card.