What to do if your credit card is lost?

Did you lose your credit card? First of all, of course, you need to freeze or lock your card and then contact your personal issuer. Also, in case of theft, you need to contact the police, and in the department of which you will draw up a statement about the act of theft. According to the statistics, $24.2 billion was lost in 2018 due to credit card fraud; 47% of all credit card fraud cases happen in the US. While stolen card details sell for as little as $9 on the black market, Americans lose $231 on average from credit card fraud, so it is best to hurry up.

However, you may feel that it is still in your possession. Perhaps this is just an assumption that the credit card was stolen, and in fact, it lies somewhere under a folder of papers at your work? We are here to help you figure out all the situation’s variants in more detail and find your lost credit card without the hassle.

How to find a lost credit card?

As we said earlier, you should suspend the card’s operation and not completely block it. Most of the cards nowadays allow you to suspend its work remotely from your phone or computer by temporarily locking/freezing. This handy feature will allow you to play it safe when you do not know what exactly happened to your lost credit card. A couple of clicks in the application, and you can enable/disable this option. After that, you will get the necessary time to take the following steps to find a lost credit card such as:

1. Calm down. In order to conduct the correct search, you need to calm down and get out of the state of panic or anger. Otherwise, you will be too dispersed and may pass by and forget important details in order to find your credit card.
2. Restore events in your mind. Brainstorm what you have been doing today. Next, go through these locations, repeating the movements that were made during that period of time. This can help you find your lost credit card.
3. Ask for help. Sometimes your relatives or acquaintances who were with you know better your past actions. Even if they weren’t around, they could help you find your credit card and expand your search with fresh ideas if you ask them to help you.
4. Make a list of places. Take a notebook and pen or your phone and write down the places where you think your lost credit card can be. You can use our list below. Next, cross out each carefully checked place so as not to waste time on it further.
5. Clean up the mess. Just remember, how many times you lost your belongings due to clutter, it is really worth cleaning the premises to find a lost credit card.

Where can you refer when you lost the credit card?

It happens that the search takes too long, you start worrying about the safety of your funds and data, or you just want to increase the chances of finding your card. Then you better contact the relevant organizations that we have indicated below.

• Use the help of lost and found sites. This method helps to improve your search. With the posted lost credit card announcement, you will receive messages about possible matches with your request. By filling out the ad, you can get a faithful assistant who will look for your card 24/7.
• Call your credit card issuer. It can help if you do not have the opportunity to freeze the card. You can easily find your credit card issuer’s phone number on the Internet and report loss or theft. This can also be done at a bank branch. This will help you not be liable for possible payments from your lost credit card. This way, you can cancel the card and get a new one.
• Contact the police. When your credit card was stolen, you need to both contact the issuers and the police. This is especially important when it comes to stealing the wallet in which the card was stored. There could be things in it that that can help carry out fraudulent money transfers or criminal impersonation (driver’s license, passport, etc).

Each of the options we have proposed requires full identity verification as the card owner. To do this, you need to provide data such as name, address, and social security number for police as well as for issuers. After submitting the application, you will receive a statement, which is best checked. With the rapid detection of, for example, inappropriate data, you can immediately fix everything. Thus, you can guess that your insurance policy will cover the theft of a credit card, but in the documents, you will still be deducted $50 for its restoration.

Most common places lost credit card

To simplify the task of finding your card, we have collected for you the most common places where people lose them. Check all of them very carefully so that you do not come back to them. Sometimes lost items, like a credit card, can “magically” budge and settle next to it. Therefore, it is better to look in the vicinity of the places indicated by us. We also recommend you to use the help of friends and acquaintances.

• Under and behind stuff. Furniture, drawers, and countertops are great places where a credit card can hide, and yet it can go off the horizon behind these items.
• Car. Maybe your lost credit card is right under your car seat?
• Clothing. Often we can put a credit card in our pockets of the coat, for example.
• Backpack or purse. Too logical, you say, but sometimes the corners of the bag seem just endless.
• Sofa. This also applies to other holiday destinations where you may have pulled something out of your pockets and accidentally taken it out along with your lost credit card.
• Pet resting places. Your four-legged friend may have found a new toy for himself, so it is better to check out its favorite spots.
• Washer/Dryer. Sometimes people put credit cards in jeans or jacket pockets and forget to take them out before washing.
• Trash can. Yes, it so happens that we do not think about what exactly we throw away.

When we lose things, like a credit card that is part of our daily life, we attach too much importance to it, although this is not the end of our lives. Remember that you can always prevent losing by developing the habit of putting things in the same place. You can also use flamboyant designs to emphasize things in your memory more often and prevent situations like this from happening. Do not forget to use our tips and apply all of them to get the most out of your credit card searches.