There was a rash of fraud at the Credit Union where I do my banking, my father-in-law got hit and I almost got hit. I was monitoring my account on a daily basis after hearing what my fil went through and saw a suspicious charge of $1 from a hotel in New York and immediately called the credit union, they said that the crooks will try to make a smaller charge first to see if it goes through and then they start making the bigger charges, luckily I caught it before they were able to do any damage. As a result, the credit union restricted all out of state charges, if you plan to use your debit card out of state you have to notify them of when/where you are travelling so they can lift the restrictions from your card so you can use it in whatever states you are travelling to.

Fast forward two years to last week. I live and work in Memphis and we had an offsite meeting in Southaven, several of us met up for lunch prior to the meeting. I go to pay my check and my debit card is declined, a little embarrassing to say the least, luckily I had a little cash on me, I rarely carry cash but I just happened to have a little on me that day. Took me a minute to figure out why the card was declined, I knew there was plenty of money in the account. Seems like Southaven, Horn Lake, and Olive Branch shouldn't be restricted since they are so close but I guess they can only do it by state and I was out of state. Pretty sad when you have to call and let the bank know you are travelling less than 30 minutes to go have lunch.

I have never had this problem when fishing in Mississippi, the store near the Tekville ramp didn't even take credit/debit cards last time I was there and the guy at the Dam store gets cross when you try to use a card for less that $10 so I just got into the habit of taking cash, need cash for the drop boxes at the ramp anyway, and a pen, I never seem to have a dang pen in the truck when I'm trying to pay the boat launch fee and fill out the envelope and the thing that hangs from the rearview mirror.