{"id":182657,"date":"2025-05-08T12:18:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T18:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/?p=182657"},"modified":"2025-05-08T12:18:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T18:18:32","slug":"check-your-credit-card-statements-every-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/check-your-credit-card-statements-every-month","title":{"rendered":"Check Your Credit Card Statements EVERY Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your credit card company very helpfully sends you a list of every single item charged to your credit card. <\/span>This<\/span> is called a statement, and it comes every month. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you reading it every month?!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A survey by <\/span>Lending Tree<\/span><\/a> revealed that 1 in 4 credit cardholders don\u2019t review their card statements every month. <\/span>This<\/span> means 25% of people <\/span>are missing<\/span> potential mistakes or even fraudulent charges! <\/span>This<\/span> is absurd to me!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch Your Autoships<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I helped my friends Abbey and Victor move from one rental to another. When I got to their house, they pointed to \u201cthe free pile\u201d and asked me if I wanted anything <\/span>in there<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to random odds and ends, there were about nine cases of Celsius Energy drink. When I asked them why they were getting rid of it\u2014and why they had so many\u2014I was shocked to hear that the previous tenant had been getting an Amazon delivery of a case every two weeks\u2014and never cancelled it! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbey and Victor lived in this house for nine months! That\u2019s roughly 18 cases of an energy drink <\/span>that someone<\/span> else paid for and never received. They were $23 a case on Amazon when I looked it up. That adds up to $414 <\/span>absolutely<\/span> wasted! (Well, not <\/span>really<\/span> wasted, because they\u2019ve been giving it away to anyone who wants it, but still.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, they tried to reach out to Amazon to have the shipment stopped, but they needed the account holder\u2019s information <\/span>in order to<\/span> stop<\/span> the shipments. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But wait, there\u2019s mor<\/span>e\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free Gas<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am a real estate agent <\/span>and<\/span> represented myself when I bought my <\/span>current<\/span> home five years ago.<\/span> One thing<\/span> I always tell my buyer clients <\/span>is<\/span> to move the utilities into their <\/span>own<\/span> name the week before closing so the change goes live on closing day.<\/span> Of course, I did the same for myself. Or so I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward two years, and I was searching my inbox for my natural gas bill. I can\u2019t remember why I needed it, but I couldn\u2019t find it, and my husband didn\u2019t have it in his inbox either. But we DO have gas service\u2014and <\/span>it hadn\u2019t been shut off<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I <\/span>reached out to<\/span> the company to ask them what email address they had on file for us. They gave an address I\u2019ve never heard of, and the name on the account was NOT mine. It was the son-in-law of the person who owned the house previously. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had never <\/span>turned the service over<\/span> to my name, and they had never cancelled their service!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I immediately put the service into my name, and asked if I could get a history of the last two years of payments <\/span>so I could<\/span> reimburse them, and <\/span>was told<\/span> they cannot give me the contact info or the amount they paid.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the winter, my bill can be $200-$300. Summers are much less\u2014and I have no idea how much this <\/span>actually<\/span> costs since the gas company won\u2019t share. But I\u2019d guess it was easily $1,000 they paid on my behalf. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s So Easy to Avoid Problems and Fraud<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both these<\/span> situations could have been completely avoided<\/span> if these people had <\/span>simply<\/span> checked their <\/span>credit card statements each month<\/span>.<\/span> And<\/span> this process takes just a few minutes!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to save $414 (and counting\u2014that energy drink delivery is still going strong) and even MORE worth it for that utility service I got for free for two years. (Who even knows how long they would have continued to pay my bill?!)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, there were two charges on my credit card I didn\u2019t recognize. I called <\/span>up<\/span> the issuing company, and we determined together that it was most likely fraudulent and that someone had somehow gotten hold of my card number. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this happens, the fraudster <\/span>will frequently start<\/span> with a nominal charge to test the card. Large purchases can draw attention to the credit card company <\/span>as well as to<\/span> the cardholder, but ~$20 may not. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ended up cancelling my card, and they sent me a new one. Better safe than sorry.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start Building a Habit<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re one of the 25% who don\u2019t check their credit card statement every month, <\/span>make a<\/span> plan to do so, starting with the next statement you receive. Either review it as soon as it comes in or put a note on your calendar to review it before you pay the bill. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t recognize a charge? Co<\/span>ntact your credit card company and let them know you are <\/span>disputing a charge<\/span><\/a>, and they\u2019ll share wi<\/span>th you t<\/span>he steps to take. I<\/span>t\u2019s <\/span>a very simple<\/span> process, takes just a few minutes, and can save you money!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Money Podcast<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kickstart your personal finance journey with Scott and Mindy as they break down the good, bad, and ugly of people\u2019s personal money stories. From interviews with entrepreneurs and business owners to breakdowns of listener finances, you\u2019ll get actionable advice on how to get out of debt and grow your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Listen Now<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/main>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your credit card company very helpfully sends you a list of every single item charged to your credit card. This is called a statement, and it comes every month.  Are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1687,"featured_media":151334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-finance"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}