keep your card in sight/close

the husband just told me about a fraud called skimming. example: you have eaten at a lovely restaurant, a bouncy waitperson takes your card away from the table to run it through their machine, they then surreptitiously run the card through a skimmer, you sign the printed receipt not realizing that your bank account is being emptied out (debit card) or purchases are being run up worldwide (credit card) and before you even get out of the restaurant, you are flat broke or monstrously in debt.

we don't have debit cards (we're mega turbulent-1960's bred/distrustful persons) and continue to be glad we don't. there always seems to be some worry about debit danger. as for unscrupulous credit card deals, even though you probably are limited to $50 liability your credit rating will suffer big-time until everything gets straightened out.

the skimming problem seems to be especially wide-spread in europe, so kt -- as per your trip to italy .... this site has some good info about using three types of money (e.g., "Keep your cash, cheques and credit cards in separate pockets, so if you lose one you don’t lose all.") that i would suggest you peruse, and if you think you may actually have some time to play and plan to spend some money, i wonder if it would be better to get some euros before you leave, or to use your credit card (but not let it out of your sight), or change your dollars to euros at a bank once you get there. maybe you could talk with adam and see what he suggests.

tip: one euro = 1.3028 u.s. dollars.