Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ Control Your Payment Card from Your iPhone Josh Centers A while back, I checked my [1]Ally Bank checking account balance and was alarmed at how unusually low it was. Looking closer, I noticed several hundred dollars of charges to [2]HostGator, with whom I've never done business. Yikes, someone had stolen my debit card number! Such problems apparently happen frequently with HostGator, so much so that the company has a special help page just for [3]fraudulent charges. I was able to get my money back quickly. The bizarre part is that the fraud occurred on an old debit card that should have been deactivated by the bank. That meant I didn't have to get a new card, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. It certainly won't happen to my current Ally debit card, thanks to the new [4]Ally Card Controls app. This simple app lets me turn a card on and off with a switch, control how my card is used, view recent purchases, and receive a notification every time my card is used. Ally Card Controls is a little wonky. When you first open it, you're told you have to authorize it from the main [5]Ally Mobile app. It's not immediately obvious how you do this. What you have to do is go into Settings in the Ally Mobile app and choose Card Controls. That bounces you to the Ally Card Controls app and authorizes it. You may also notice that Ally Card Controls isn't optimized for larger screens like the iPhone 7 Plus. But these minor irritations are worth putting up with for the app's benefits. [6][tn_Authorize-Ally-Card-Controls.jpg] In the main screen, you see your card, with a big switch to turn it on and off. (If you have multiple cards from Ally, you can swipe between them.) Traditionally, if your card disappears, you have to assume it could have been stolen and call the issuer to have it canceled and get a new one sent out. It's a huge pain. With the Ally Card Controls app, you can simply turn the card off yourself, just in case, and then turn it on again if you later find it jammed between the car seats. [7][tn_Ally-Card-Control-switch.jpg] That's just scratching the surface. Under Control Preferences, you can choose where and how your card can be used. * Locations: Here you can set your card to work only when the merchant is in the vicinity of your iPhone, by turning on My Location. You can also set it to work only in My Regions, which are up to three addresses you provide to Ally. These first two settings only apply to in-store purchases. You can also enable Block International to block any transactions outside your country. * Merchant Types: These settings let you control the types of stores where your debit card can be used. For instance, you can enable your card at gas stations but disable it at restaurants. I'm not a huge fan of these categories because they can be vague. What the heck does Personal Care mean? * Transaction Types: This restriction is more useful than merchant types, since you can set where your card can be used. For instance, you can make it so your card can be used at an ATM or in a store, but not online. [8][tn_Ally-Control-Preferences.jpg] * Spend Limits: You can't set a daily spending limit, but you can configure a per-transaction limit. That way, you could let kids use your card for gas and have confidence that they won't go buy an expensive TV. Below Control Preferences are Alert Preferences. You can set alert rules along the same lines as the control rules, but I prefer to get a notification for All Transactions. I don't use my card enough for it to be obnoxious, and I find the buzz of my iPhone seconds after I swipe my card to be reassuring. Finally, there's Recent Transactions, which is what you'd expect. Other banks offers apps with similar features, but none seem quite as comprehensive, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. Options from Other Banks -- I don't want to seem like a shill for Ally Bank. It's just what I use and thus the bank with which I have the most experience. Other financial institutions offer similar options to disable a card via apps or Web sites, along with providing purchase notifications. * The [9]Amex Mobile app can notify you of purchases made with your American Express card. * Bank of America lets you temporarily [10]deactivate a debit card with [11]their app or via their Web site. The app can also send you notifications about your account. * Capital One 360 lets you [12]temporarily deactivate your debit card via their Web site. The [13]Capital One Wallet app lets you turn your card on and off and can notify you about purchases made with your card. * Discover lets you freeze a credit card with its [14]iOS app, but says nothing about purchase notifications. * USAA offers a temporary card block via [15]their Web site or [16]their iOS app. It's encouraging that some financial institutions let you use an app or Web site to temporarily or permanently deactivate a credit or debit card, control spending, and be notified of purchases, but we'd like to see these features become more widespread. If you know of other financial institutions who provide such features via an iOS app, let us know in the comments! References 1. https://www.ally.com/ 2. https://www.hostgator.com/ 3. https://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/security-abuse/stolen-credit-card-unauthorized-signup 4. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ally-card-controls/id1194145093?mt=8&at=10l5PW 5. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ally-mobile/id514374715?mt=8&at=10l5PW 6. http://tidbits.com/resources/2017-05/Authorize-Ally-Card-Controls.png 7. http://tidbits.com/resources/2017-05/Ally-Card-Control-switch.png 8. http://tidbits.com/resources/2017-05/Ally-Control-Preferences.png 9. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amex-mobile/id362348516?mt=8&at=10l5PW 10. https://www.bankofamerica.com/deposits/manage/faq-debit-card.go 11. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bank-of-america-mobile-banking/id284847138?mt=8&at=10l5PW 12. https://helpcenter.capitalone360.com/Topic.aspx?faq=FBNKEOCD30 13. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/capital-one-wallet/id907210949?mt=8&at=10l5PW 14. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/discover-mobile/id338010821?mt=8&at=10l5PW 15. https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Bank-Services/PLEASE-ADD-A-quot-TEMPORARY-LOCK-quot-FEATURE-FOR-THE-CREDIT/td-p/100999 16. https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Bank-Services/You-can-now-put-a-Block-Freeze-for-each-credit-card-NICE/td-p/97998 .