A smart reader recently noticed that and asked an excellent question. How can you remove saved credit card information from your browser once it’s in there? RELATED: How to protect yourself from credit card fraud. We know exactly how to remove your saved credit card info, and we know how to do it for most browsers. Read on to find out why removing a saved credit card is a good idea, and how to go about doing it.
Why you don’t want your credit card saved
We mentioned before that an astute reader prompted our writing of this piece. Here’s their full message to us: Brenda touches on something important for why you shouldn’tkeep your credit card information saved in your web browser. That informationcan become out of date, resulting in failed payments or annoying shoppingexperiences. It asks me to type in the three-digit security code from the cards, but I really prefer to dismantle these autofill pop-ups. How do I get rid of these autofill credit cards on my screen?” By this we mean, you might lose the chance to get great concert or show tickets because your credit card information auto-filled but that card has expired. By the time you get your proper information in, the tickets could be sold out. But even more importantly, keeping credit card information saved in your web browser is a safety concern. If your laptop is stolen, or your desktop accessed by someone else, your credit or debit cards can be hacked or drained. Yes, the autofill will still prompt you to fill in the security code as a means of keeping strangers from using your cards. But with number generators, and other hacking techniques, your cards are vulnerable. Tap or click here to learn about Wi-Fi hacks. That’s why it’s best to keep your credit and debit cards safe by not saving them on your web browser. But what if you already saved the card to your browser?
How to remove a saved credit card
Different browsers store credit cards differently from one another. Find your browser below, and follow its steps for removing the information permanently.
To remove a saved credit card from Google Chrome:
Click on the three-dot icon to the far right of the address bar, and click on Settings.Beneath the “Autofill” heading, click on “Payment methods.”Click on the three-dot icon to the right of a saved credit or debit card beneath the “Payment methods” heading and click “Remove” in the drop-down menu that appears. Do that for all of the saved cards.Turn the “Save and fill payment methods” switch at the top of this page to off to keep Chrome from auto-filling or trying to save payment methods in the future.
To remove a saved credit card from Firefox:
In the top right corner of a window, click the three-bar icon and select Settings.On the left menu, click “Privacy & Security.”Scroll down to “Forms & Autofill” and click “Saved Addresses” to see what cards you have saved. Select a saved card and click “Remove” to delete it. Do this for all saved credit and debit cards.To keep Firefox from auto-filling, or asking to autofill in the future, back under the “Forms & Autofill” heading in the Privacy & Security settings page, uncheck the “Autofill addresses” checkbox.
To remove a saved credit card from Safari:
Click on the “Safari” tab at the very top of your screen and select “Preferences” from the drop-down menu that appears.Select the “Autofill” tab, and click the “Edit…” button beside “Credit cards.”Click on a card and click the “Remove” button to the bottom left of the window. Do this for all of the cards and click “Done” on the bottom right. To keep credit and debit cards from being saved or autofilled, uncheck the box to the left of “Credit cards” in the Autofill tab.
To remove a saved credit card from Microsoft Edge:
Log in to your Microsoft Account, and click on the “Payment & billing” tab. Click on “Payment options” in the drop-down menu that appears. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see what payment methods you have saved. Click “Remove” beneath each of them.To keep Edge from saving credit and debit cards and auto-filling them in the future, go to the top right corner of the window and click on the three dots. Click on Settings. In the left menu, click on the key icon to get to the “Passwords & autofill” page. Scroll down to the “Save cards” switch and turn it to “Off.”
For safety, it’s better not to keep credit card information saved on your browser. You can leave a burner card on there, maybe — tap here to learn about an app that generates burner credit cards — but it’s better to have nothing there at all. We love to hear from readers and listeners and want to answer your tech questions as often as we can. Tap or click here to ask Kim a question. In the meantime, hopefully, this article was helpful to you and you’ll be removing your saved cards ASAP.
