Please use my experience as a warning if you are signed up for multiple automatic payments for insurance, electric bills, phone, etc. A lot of those kinds of payments use a credit card as their funding source.

My favorite Visa card for those payments was compromised a Tuesday. I several days going to the websites or calling the companies to change the credit card to a different one. True, it didn’t cost me anything but I spent my time updating my info. (Thank heavens, Visa contacted me and didn’t pay out to the frauders.)

It would have been easier, but three times I discovered that the source was my checking account (which hadn’t been compromised). It still took me lots of time. In the future, I vow that I will keep an accurate list of all auto payment accounts so if it happens again, I’ll be prepared.

Despite all my hard work, two payments got caught in this mess and were rejected. I contacted the recipients to let them know what happened. I certainly didn’t want to have a “bounced” payment.