Credit cards are great things to have. With credit cards you can buy things online, you can build your credit score up so that you can make large loans for items like cars, and homes, and you can buy items when you are short of cash. The only problem with credit cards is that you can quickly get too far in debt, or you can quickly become the target of an identity thief.

Limit the number of cards that you have so that you do not get overwhelmed. When your credit gets good enough that companies start to offer you their cards, the small monthly payments make them all tempting to own. The problem is that if something happens and you miss one of those small monthly payments you can quickly owe several hundred dollars per month on each of those accounts. Limit the number of accounts that you open.

Pay more than the minimum amount due on each account each month. This will help you to pay off the amount charged quicker, and will reduce the interest charges you accrue. You will not be as likely to allow an account to become delinquent if you pay more than the monthly amount suggested by the credit issuer.

Online purchases make life simpler, and you have to have credit cards, or debit cards, to make these purchases. The problem is that there is always someone who would like to steal your information and use it to make charges on your card, or to establish other cards. You have to be diligent to remain safe from predators like these.

Get a card with a small limit and use it as your online charge card. This will protect you from someone racking up thousands of dollars of charge account debt if they should manage to get your card information. These small cards can be used when you are making purchases from places that you have not done business with before.

Set up alerts with the credit issuing company. Many credit issuers would gladly establish an alert for your account. When these are established the issuing company will contact you if they notice a charge that is out of character for you. This could save you from identity theft, and it protects the company from charges that may not be paid for by the card holder.

Do not put your debit card number online unless it is a prepaid debit card. You do not want someone to have unauthorized access to your bank account information, so do not put your debit account information online. Use prepaid cards when you have to have these kinds of accounts to make purchases.

Look at your statements very carefully when you get them each month. You want to make certain that all of the charges that show up on your card were made by you. There are some criminals who are smart enough to only make a few charges on each of the accounts they get access to. Many people do not look closely at their statements and these small charges could quickly add up before the cardholder closes the account.

Credit cards are necessary for online purchases. Credit cards are a blessing, but you must be diligent to keep them from becoming a nightmare. You can get more information from credit lines.