Having personally discovered how valuable credit cards alerts are I would certainly advise everyone who has this option available...use it.
When you go online to your credit card accounts you should see numerous options there for personal setting.
Two of the most important are:
Set alert for purchase where card is not present
Set alert for purchase over $__ amount
For me, having both of these set, I was alerted to a purchase made not only over the $ amount I had set, but that the card was also not present at purchase, meaning it was done online. For this reason, even if one of those alerts had not been triggered the other one would have caught it.
Turns out someone at a local store had snagged a pic of our credit card numbers during a purchase and later, airline tickets were bought online. Within the hour I had the fraud division of the card company on the job and the charges removed.
Had I not had these alerts set I'm afraid to think what might have happened. Surely we would not have had such speed in getting anyone on the job.
Yes, when you set these alerts you will get emailed for every online purchase you make. I know, you've got more than enough emails, but this is one email that is probably more important than most of what you already receive. I would rather get the notification and delete it because all is well than not get it and find a debit or credit card being drained.
As for the "dollar amount" setting...set it low. Not so low that you'll get alerted for stopping for gas, but even at a $100 amount you'll be happy you did. Many fraud cases are those of someone making many smaller amount purchases with the card in order to not raise a flag. With the lower amount you know they'll cross that line.
Keep an eye on your card at all times when making a purchase. Yes, some are sneaky as in our case with the camera/phone just out of sight by the register and the clerk acting distracted, but that's the rare case. Mostly, if you can "see" the card as you purchase, you're good. The other times such as in a restaurant where they walk off with it, you just need to have faith....or...have your alerts set!!
