Understanding credit card protection concepts – meaning how to keep credit card information safe through security awareness and maybe even by using a protection program offered by a credit card issuer – needs to be a part of any credit card holder's life. Failing to do everything one can to protect and ensure against misuse of a credit card by those with bad intent causes billions in losses to people and credit card companies every year, for one.

There are several things a person holding a card should do in order to ensure at least a modicum of credit card protection, beginning with never letting a card out of one's sight. What this means is that one should avoid just handing over a card to a waiter or clerk who then goes into a back office or out of sight to process the card. Unscrupulous people will then swipe the card through another card reader, which stores the information on the magnetic stripe for later cloning of the card.

It's also a good idea to inquire of a clerk or waiter or cashier whenever the card being used is swiped more than once through a reader. Usually, this is perfectly normal and many readers fail to pick up the information needed on the first pass-through. But it's still smart to ask the person doing the swiping why it was ran through again. Again, a dishonest cashier or clerk can secrete a storage device hidden away from sight that will take the data from the second swipe for later use.

It almost goes without saying today – in this new digital millennium – that one should never, ever use a credit card at an unsecured website. Basically, this means that if the site at which a good or service is being purchased doesn't feature a small padlock icon in the toolbar or down at the lower right hand side of the page, then a card shouldn't be used, ever. Even the least-skilled hacker can quickly penetrate such a site and make off with a lot of valuable financial information.

One good way to avoid the problem of online shopping data theft is to make use of a prepaid card in order to gain the most from a well thought-out credit card protection plan. Just load the card with a predetermined amount of money and then make any purchases needed. If the data on the card is pilfered, then the loss is limited strictly to the amount of money on the card at the time.

Credit card companies also offer their own credit card protection programs, by the way. Just about every card issuer of any significance now offers at least one protection plan that can come in handy if a card is lost or stolen and then used illegally. Consumer credit laws also protect a card holder's liability in the event of card loss or theft, as well. In the end, how one handles and protects one's credit says a lot about a person. That's why it's important to treat credit with the respect it deserves and merits.