There's a growing concern about unscrupulous clerks and waiters using a small scanning device to capture information from a credit card's magnetic strip before passing it through their cash registers.

Those illicit scanners are more common abroad than in the United States, and the stolen information is often passed along to other members of sophisticated gangs that run up huge charges on your account.

You're especially vulnerable to that kind of theft at restaurants where your credit card is taken from your table, and out of your sight, for processing.

The more adventurous you are in choosing a neighborhood and cafe, the more important it is to keep your credit card in your pocket.