Did you hear about the waiter who increased his tip before submitting the credit card charge? Are you concerned that your credit card could be cloned? Or a discarded receipt could provide your credit card number to a criminal? Or that an unethical retailer could change a 1 to a 7? Or that an Internet company could post an incorrect or extra charge? Are you certain that you receive every refund or credit, large or small, that is due to you? It is unlikely that you will ever be billed incorrectly, and if a valid charge never appears, you may want to do the right thing and tell the retailer. But, refunds and credits sometimes get lost. You probably watch for the large ones, but the small ones can escape notice.

You balance your checking account, verifying the accuracy of the bank statement. It may be more important to verify that your credit card charges match your receipts, and all of your refunds get credited, correctly and promptly, on your credit card statements.

All prominent credit card companies offer an opportunity to download a copy of your current and recent credit card statements to your Internet-enabled computer. These statements can be imported into a "Verifycharges" common data base. The receipts you have accumulated can then easily be reconciled simply by entering the dollar amount of each receipt, without the need to sort them by card type. Since the charges are automatically identified by payee type as they are imported, you can view all of your credit card charges by budget category or taxable status.