Never be worried about your card details getting stolen, skimmed or otherwise misused.

I've been asked to write this by a friend who works for a company that fixes cashpoint machines.  It's nothing special, just what I do, it may work for you too.

You don't need to look very hard to find horror stories regarding credit / debit card fraud.  People looking over your shoulder at cashpoints, hacking online accounts, rogue call centre workers - you'll probably have heard just as many tales as I.  The solution is 'low tech', simple and in most cases, free :-)

All I did was tell my bank that I wanted an additional account with a Visa Debit Card (note, NOT Credit Card).  I also asked them to flag the account for NO OVERDRAFT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (I put this last bit in writing - I don't trust banks).

After quite a lot of dicking around and telling me they couldn't/wouldn't do either, I threatened to move my account - they suddenly changed their mind - and gave me a new account, with a debit card, PIN and no overdraft.

That's it.  Whenever I'm going to go out for the evening and may need to get cash from an ATM, or pay for a meal, I simply transfer money from my main account, into my 'safe' new account via Internet banking.  The transfer is immediate (you may need to check with your bank or building society that their online service supports this), and the money - limited to what I'm going to need, is there ready for me.

Similarly, for online transactions I simply transfer as above exactly what I need for the online purchase.

Because I stipulated NO OVERDRAFT it doesn't matter if anyone gets the card details as they're not going to get much out of that account anyway - simple.