You know, sometimes it feels like the old west when you go out with your credit cards to the mall and online especially. But I like shopping and paying bills online.

So what I do is buy VISA and American Express Gift Cards. These are Debit Cards that have a fixed value and that is the beauty of it. You can't lose any more than the value of the card.

So for my online pleasures I use a gift card. I pay a monthly fee of $5.95 to a Music Service and while I have never had a problem in the past, I don't want any accidents happening...

So I buy a $50 VISA Gift Card for $54.98 (or something like that depending on your tax rate).

Now I use the Gift Card for the subscription and I know that I have 10 months of money allocated to that service.

I have a $200 American Express Gift Card that I use online to pay for stuff at online stores and other places.

I know that I will not find some strange charge for $570.00 on my card that I know I didn't do. And I can still enjoy the ease of shopping online.

Shopping in the mall, at restaurants and other places that accept debit cards will accept these Gift Cards. Lose one of these and you have only lose the remainder of the amount that's left over on the card.

I personally don't get the refillable cards but I do see a good reason for having one.

Having a refillable card means you get a Debit card number you can use to sign up for a service and then load the card with an amount of your choice knowing that no one can get any more than the amount you have on the card.

Now if the vendor wants to sue you that's another thing...

This is also a good way to give your kids a fixed amount of money to work with and know that if they lose their card that the family account is not in jeopardy. The loses would be limited to the amount on the card.

The ones that worry me are the one's that the bank issues (refillable).

Right now I wish the bank would not overdraft my account. If the money is not there then deny the charge.

With the refillable Gift Cards issues by banks, will they overdraft your card and let someone find, steal, abuse the card by charging the account when the card is empty?

The point of the Gift Card (to me) is to have a finite amount of money to work with and to limit the potential loses to the amount that remains allocated to the card.

I have had my card charged 7 times in a hour for $40 and then two $120 charges. It took forever to get the money back and the worry that you will wake up tomorrow and find more of your money gone.

At least with the Gift Cards, I lose the value of the card or less depending on the amount that I have used prior to the lost or thief.

I'm not selling Credit Cards of bank accounts but I am a parent and I have grand kids. I know how easy today can be only to find out tomorrow morning that half your savings are gone and many of your bills that you thought you just paid are bouncing like a bobble-head.

I'm Just sayin'!

DJ Rico