Nowadays, Teenagers are more techno-savvy than an average adult. Today’s generation is far ahead than the older generation in technology which has become a burden for a parent. Teenagers love playing with gadgets ; where they are also able to hack or unlock a credit card. Don’t be surprised when you get tons of goods outside your door.
Children want to buy games and goods that they often ask you for, but when you don’t give permission, they try alternative credit cards. Often a teenager works hard to obtain ways to use your credit card. Many Credit card companies don’t take responsibility for your child action and fraud protection.
Why Do Children Love to Use a Credit Card
First, a child has many items they want, which include necessary goods and unnecessary goods. Due to the development of the internet, you can easily buy them, which has provided convenience for you, especially your child. If you are lucky, teens usually purchase in-app games, songs, movies, and other shopping goods such as food, clothes, and entertainment stuff.
Or if you are unlucky, they might spend a large amount of money to buy items such as Xbox 360, Playstation 4, Playstation 3 or Nintendo device and many other devices where your entire savings may be lost, and you will not be able to do anything. When your child tends to be persistent in buying habits, your credit card has more risk and dangers.
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How to Control Teens Behavior of Using Credit Card
You might have become quite worried and stressed about your teen buying habits. No wonder parents have a lot of responsibility that only they can manage and handle. As prevention is better than cure, here I will give some of the ways by which you can make your life easier and avoid the credit card worries:
1. Check your credit card statement
You will need to check your credit card statement as frequently as possible. Even when you are not using your credit card, check them frequently where you cannot be sure whether your child or any other hackers might have used it. Hackers are doing their best to hack credit cards, so you must also do your best to protect them.
Even if hackers don’t hack your credit cards, there might be an unnecessary cost charged by a bank. You can analyze the cost and talk with your bank, which will help you save money. So, checking and analyzing your credit card statement frequently might be a bonus for you.
2. Maintain Credit card security
Credit card security is an essential factor that helps make sure that another party does not use your credit card. Frequently change your pin or password of a credit card so that your children cannot use your password. When you frequently change the pin, they will not be motivated to use your credit card.
After that, you can also keep a strong longer digits password that your teen cannot guess and crack. Don’t use personal information such as dob, mobile number, house no and many more as a password because your children can easily guess it. If you save your password, write where a teen is not able to reach.
Keep in mind don’t write a repeated number such as 12345 or 54321 or many more and never show your password to your child. Many parents are not careful with their child, but usually, your child’s brain works fasts as a train as it takes less than a second to memorize the password and use it for themselves.
3. Remove saved payment information
One of the easier ways for a teen to use a credit card is through save payment options. If you have saved all the credit card information on your laptop or mobile, then delete it. Although it may create convenience for you, this will affect your child.
Delete saved payment details from pages that allow you to save billing information for a quicker checkout wherever possible. This usually is not possible for app stores that need a credit card on hand, but it is possible for several web pages.
4. Educate your teenager about credit cards
Children learn from adults when they want something they might think they should automatically use a credit card. Teach them about a credit card from their younger years. Focus on why credit cards should be less frequently used and why a teen shouldn’t use them. This will also give them deep knowledge about money and saving.
5. Go out for monitoring software
Even after educating them, they are not listening, then try monitoring software. Monitoring software like fenced.ai helps you to monitor and track all the activities done by children on their devices. You can view browser history to all the internet activity that your child does from your work and even analyze whether they have used your credit card or not.
When your child tries to shop online, you will instantly get a notification or alert messages where you can block suspicious activity like online shopping sites or even block credit card activity of your child through monitoring devices.
After monitoring software you can even use blocking tools such as ColdTurkey to block the website through computers.
6. Set out rules and guidelines
You should not always be strict with your child but when it comes to money set rules of guidelines that they need to follow. Do not permit to shop online or use your credit cards. Your child might try to convince you to give credit cards to them but persistently refuse them or give logical reasoning of why teenagers should use a credit card.
7. Be careful from persistent teens
Some teenagers tend to be very persistent, i.e. if they like something they will definitely buy it. Be careful when your child is persistent; they may come with several ways to use credit cards. Never leave your credit card away from you as they might try to steal.
Some of the persistent kids even develop a psychological disorder where at any cost they must obtain the things they want. Your teen may also develop a stealing habit which is dangerous. Keep credit cards in a safe place where they are not able to find.
8. Destroy Papers that contain information
Usually, people write several vital pieces of information on a paper to remember and note later on. But this is one of the riskier methods as your children or other people can quickly get access to it and use your credit card.
The best way to remove this risk is to shrewd all the papers, documents, or files after using it. Don’t leave for later on; shrewd the papers in a spot so that there is no slightest probability of others to access your information.
9. Purchase necessary goods
Don’t be busy with your children. Generally, teenagers have many demands from clothes to a gadget, while some include necessary items and others may not turn out to be unnecessary goods. Ask them what they frequently need so that you can be sure what your child desires.
Only buy items which are necessary for them. These will give them less reason to use your credit cards, reducing their credit card behaviours. If possible, take them to market frequently and buy things they need most rather than online, reducing online buying behaviours.
Things to remember as a parent
First, You can take control or manage your teen money spending habits from now. When you permit a credit card to buy goods, it can increase their buying and money spending behaviour. Second, Children might give your credit card information directly or indirectly online, which may increase the risk of hacking, phishing, fraud and many more.
FAQ
- Can I track who used my credit card?
In most cases, credit card firms will only trace where the stolen credit card was last used after the card has been used by the individual who robbed it. The authorizing process for credit cards aids banks in keeping track of this. The suspect could, however, be long gone by the time law enforcement arrives.
- Can you go to jail for using your parents credit card?
Despite close relation children have with parents, it is always best to ask for permission before using a Parents Credit Card. Without permission, using an unauthorized credit card is considered theft and punishable by law with fines and charges in many states.
Conclusion
Don’t worry if you manage your child habits of using credit then you will be able to save your money. Teenagers tend to buy different necessary and unnecessary goods, and due to credit cards, this has become easier and convenient. Don’t trust your child and give him/ her your credit card information.
