Why are you worried about unauthorized use of your credit card number? Under US law, you are liable for $0 of the charges. If you lost your physical card or had it stolen, you're liable for up to $50 of charges made before you reported it as such.
Legally and financially, if a malicious website uses my card number poorly, the consequences for me are "I notice an issue and Chase mails me a new credit card".
Debit card numbers, sure, that's a whole other ball game. But a credit card number? IDGAF if it gets stolen. It's not my problem, and I like it that way.
> Why are you worried about unauthorized use of your credit card number? Under US law, you are liable for $0 of the charges.
While you're correct, it's a huge PITA replacing a CC. I have almost all my bills going through my CC for points. Then there are places like my crap gym that charges a fee if the CC is ever denied for any reason.
Some (most) CCs will allow prior recurring charges to continue with an old/lost/stolen CC number for some period of time (potentially until the expiration date) so you can avoid that headache.
In the case of my AmEx, I have some monthly charges still using an old number from 3 years and 2 stolen cards ago. Discover used to offer this too, though I don't know if they currently do.
Except I think the vendor has to do something? I know some vendors immediately start failing and others seemingly work fine. Regardless of whose problem it is, it becomes a PITA for me.
I don't see why the merchant would have to do anything. If the card/bank allows the transaction, because they recognize the merchant using the "old" card info it'll go through.
I think the concern of losing money over a stolen credit card is very low. The concern of identity theft, OTOH, is very high and very costly. Suddenly being denied a loan to buy a house, and then having difficulty finding any place to rent - pretty bad. Took someone I know over a year to rectify.
Legally and financially, if a malicious website uses my card number poorly, the consequences for me are "I notice an issue and Chase mails me a new credit card".
Debit card numbers, sure, that's a whole other ball game. But a credit card number? IDGAF if it gets stolen. It's not my problem, and I like it that way.