These days we don't worry about it much. We pay all of our bills on time (including the mortgage that usually gets some extra to principal) and we do occasionally use credit cards, so I expect that there's some good history there. But I don't plan to ever need it again.
In my experience, I've had to cancel one credit card and one debit card due to fraudulent charges. With the debit card, you're right, some money did disappear for a few days, but the bank put it back as soon as we signed and notarized a form.
For the credit card, they dropped the charges right away without me ever paying for it, but the merchant (ebay) sent my info to a collections agency, so it ended up being more of a hassle then the stolen debit card.
They traced the debit card theft back to a string of thefts at a department store we had shopped at (presumably one particular employee), but we now use cash for essentially all shopping, so that isn't a risk anymore. (Although I do try to watch out for card skimmers on ATMs.)
In my experience, I've had to cancel one credit card and one debit card due to fraudulent charges. With the debit card, you're right, some money did disappear for a few days, but the bank put it back as soon as we signed and notarized a form.
For the credit card, they dropped the charges right away without me ever paying for it, but the merchant (ebay) sent my info to a collections agency, so it ended up being more of a hassle then the stolen debit card.
They traced the debit card theft back to a string of thefts at a department store we had shopped at (presumably one particular employee), but we now use cash for essentially all shopping, so that isn't a risk anymore. (Although I do try to watch out for card skimmers on ATMs.)