Considering making an international purchase on a credit card? There are a few risks you should be aware of first. If you think there’s a chance you might want to return the item and receive a refund on your credit card, you might be surprised to learn that the amount you’ll be refunded will be considerably less than what you initially paid. Why? Credit card companies and merchants don’t refund the international conversion or international transaction fees paid when you made the purchase. In fact, they often charge the fees again, compounding your loss. Here’s a few things you can do to protect yourself:
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BankOne became First USA which is now JPMorgan and Chase. If you have a card from any of these companies, they are all charging the same rates which can be found in the ever growing directory of Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fees.

There are myriad ways identities can be stolen, and travelers expose themselves to many of them. Using credit cards or doing financial transactions with people you’ve never met in places you’ve never been before carries a certain degree of risk, but one of the biggest liabilities to travelers’ identities are those little pouches they wear around their waists. The typical traveller’s pouch usually contains credit cards, identity cards such as driver’s license or passport, home address and often a social security number. This is a goldmine to an identity thief. It gives them enough information to not only open new accounts but also commandeer existing ones.
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Look carefully. Have you ever seen an ATM that looks like this?

If you stick your debit card into this machine, you’ve been scammed.
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We’re considering what resource section we should add to this site next. A few thoughts are:
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a FTC?!
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