Here's my situation:



I have one credit card and one debit card.  I've always paid the credit card off on a monthly basis.  Twice since I've had my credit card, it has been canceled and reissued due to someone else making fraudulent charges on it.  What is interesting, however, is that I've used my debit card just as much as my credit card, and in the same places, and no one has ever tried to defraud me out of money by stealing my debit card number.  I'm beginning to think that the issuer of my credit card has internal security problems and is not safeguarding my personal information.



I was considering getting a second credit card and the canceling the first one.  Closing a credit account supposedly can harm your credit, so I would like to know if any finance people here at ARF might know to what degree that would happen.  If it helps, I've had this card about a year and a half at this point and is the first credit card I've had.

Closing a credit card can hurt your credit, but nothing to worry about if you are getting a new one unless the new one has a significantly lower credit limit (Credit usage percentage is a pretty big factor in score).  You will lose a little of your average account age but I don't think that makes a huge difference unless the CC is your only account.

You should have at least one major credit card.  I cancelled a card and until I got a new one, my score took about a 30 point hit.

I have a debt card and three credit cards.

Only my debt card, which I never use online, has been compromised.

Where are you using the credit card?

I have a feeling a vendor, not the issuing CC company is to blame.

Or just random bad luck.

I'd just stick with the card you've got for now.

Go to CreditKarma.com and use their tools. It'll pull your score for free (has some general ads on the site, but overall free) and you can use a tool on there to do all sorts of scenarios to see what the change +/- will be. Add or drop cards/loans/etc things like that.

Normally, I just buy everything on my CC and pay it off at the end of the month.  So average places...gas stations, grocery stores, wal mart, local restaurants, my utilities and insurance bills.  About the only online shopping I've done has been with Amazon, MidwayUSA, and Steam.  I've done a few ebay purchases as well, all of which went through PayPal.
Maybe you're right and it is random bad luck or a sloppy vendor.  The CC issuer is currently blaming a sloppy vendor, and I have moderately insane security measures implemented on my home computer, so I don't think it was a virus.  If they could ever figure out which business it is that's being sloppy with card info I could avoid them, but I don't hold out any hope of ever getting that information.
Have I mentioned that I've always believed that the punishment for credit card fraud or ID theft should be public flogging?



Thanks for the input.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here changing every damn password to every damn thing I have.
 

use  a hammer to smash the RFID chip in your cards that way pocket scanners cant steal your info... sounds a bit tinfoil hat but it happens a lot here in socal...