I don't worry about it. Fraud is not my risk, it is the credit card co's risk. By law, your loss is limited to $50; in practice they never charge that.

I've had my info stolen once or twice and it was not a big deal. I very rarely use cash. Between Amex, Apple Pay, and Venmo, i don't really need cash or checks anymore.

They must get a lot of last-minute cancellations and no-shows. Talk to your stylist.

I don't save credit card info on very many websites - just a few that I use frequently. I wouldn't leave my credit card info on file with my hair salon though I wouldn't change stylists if that suddenly became a requirement. I love mine and I had to endure a couple of lousy ones before I found her (after I moved). She's independent, renting a chair, so the salon wouldn't dictate anything about her payment methods. She is one of the few people I pay by check so she doesn't incur the credit card fee.

I don't worry (too much) about credit card info online. Yes, it would be inconvenient if the info was stolen but as Mtn pointed out, you won't be financially liable if something happens.

I always leave the save the info portion unchecked if possible. I only use one card and have it all memorized so it only takes a few seconds to add the info each time.

I won't give sites bank account info, I'd rather pay the credit card surcharge.

I used to go to a very expensive salon that did this. It always bothered me. Not fraud but that if I had an emergency not within the time limit of cancellation, I would be charged. it never happened, but it was always nagging at me.

I am glad my current salon doesn’t do this.

My card is saved on Amazon and a few others

i had my Amex info stolen last year. It was a pain in the neck. Not awful, but very tedious and I would not want to go through it again. It happened twice months apart. Had to get new cards issued each time. Have to say, American Express is fabulous, but now when I make a large charge, it is sometimes declined because they suspect fraud, so I have to go through re-ordering after letting Amex know or using a different card. Some of the charges were hilarious though-two from a fishing supply store for some sort of very expensive machinery. Sheesh. I suspect it was somehow connected to my Amazon Prime account, so I quit that. Haven't had an issue since.

Long way of saying that I would not give them a card to save. Venmo is easily hacked as well according to what I have read in the paper's business pages. I never allow my card info to be saved. I use my debit card most of the time and just tap it.

I find that very off-putting and I would be tempted to find another stylist if the stylist was insistent upon this policy, especially if you prefer to pay cash. However, all business that accept credit card information are required to follow PCI Compliance regulations, so there is some level of standards that businesses must adhere to in order to collect, store, and process credit card information. I guess my point is that there are some protections for you, including the protections that the credit cards offer. There is a lot more I could say about the nuances of stored credit card information, but the detail is probably not helpful for making your decision.

At the end of the day, are you comfortable with your stylist having the ability to charge your card outside of a normal transaction where you would pay at the salon. I would at the very least contact the stylist and state your objections (explain that you pay cash) and your reservations and find out why they need your card on file. If you have been a loyal customer, perhaps they will be willing to make an exception.

I agree with Mtn…I don’t worry about my cc so much. Now I don’t like paying with electronic checks….I do it when I have to, but I don’t like it.

Oh, and I wouldn’t leave my stylist for any reason. He could be requiring me to do a back handspring after my appointment, and you’d see me tumbling all over the place, lol lol. He’s awesome!

This is the result of people being very casual about showing up for things, a phenomenon I think has gotten worse after Covid and which has affected people who were not like this a few years ago.

A number of restaurants here will now ask for credit card information for a reservation at any random time, as opposed to times like holidays, graduation time and so forth. We generally avoid these restaurants but my niece who for a number of years worked in the corporate/administration end for several well-know restaurant groups said that it is because of people making reservations and then not showing up.

Both of the companies she worked for had multiple restaurants, different names and concepts, and people did not know that the restauranteur corporation for various restaurants were the same entity.

She said people, (particularly millennials--her own age group) would regularly make reservations and more than one restaurant for the identical time, for varying group numbers of people. She would look in the computer and say "We already have you on the books for 7:30 at ____. Which reservation would you like to keep and which would you like to cancel?" (They also kept data on whether they did show up, whether they were late, whether they gave any of the staff a hard time and such, so they would often really know a lot about regulars--thus her knowing roughly how old a lot of them were)

And they would say "Oh we want to keep both because we don't know where we want to go really, we want to be able to decide at the time. It's not like you can't just fill our table anyway, what's the problem?" And regarding the different numbers "Oh if we go to ____, some of us won't go because they don't like___ food".

And they would get really annoyed if she made them pin down where they were actually going to eat. Some radio personality called her " Thanks to that f----- c---" who wouldn't give me a table the other night at _____"

It has gotten so bad at some places that we will make a reservation, We will get an email confirming it. We will get a phone call the day before asking for confirmation. We will get texts an hour before reminding us we are supposed to show up, and a request for a reply that we are actually truely honestly on our way. And I bet some people Still don't show up.

I'm another who does not use cash or checks much at all. I have one credit card that is used for online orders, etc. and would use it for something like this. I keep a lower limit on this card than other cards. If someone were to get my info, they would be able to charge much less. I would not want to change my stylist. I would discuss this with your stylist and see if there are options. Would they take venmo or paypal instead cc info?

I understand the motivation of the business whether it's a salon or a restaurant but it would bother me anyway. I would speak to my stylist about it but unless they were somehow irreplaceable, I'd probably move on. Any stylist I've ever felt that strongly about I've also had a long and positive relationship with so hard to imagine it personally.

I do not like having any of my info linked with a business which is why I physically write a check every single month four our internet and drop it in their payment box - an added errand for me but fortunately well within my normal routine. They are notorious for over charging and just upping your service fees when they have your bank or CC info. We live a very cash centric life here, something new to me.

If you have ever paid this salon with credit card, they (if they are the bad guys) may already have your credit card info. As may every waiter who ever took your card to the back.

One of the most famous, impossible to get reservations, favorite place to celebrate anything, Tampa restaurants has had to start charging for no shows. They book 3 months out.

“All no-shows or bookings canceled less than 24 hours before will be charged a $25 fee“

The money they collect will go to Feeding Tampa Bay.

I don't mind it. My hair stylist does this and so does our veterinarian. Note, it's a credit card, never ever a debit card.

I dont worry about it too much, but I do find it irksome. And I wonder about how well-thought out their plan is. I would be curious about how/where they are storing it, and I wouldnt be shy about asking. They shouldnt be storing the full card # in an unencrypted, untokenized version anyplace where employees have access to it.

You do have options. You can call your card issuer and ask them to generate a virtual card # to be used for this purpose. Most big issuers offer this service. You could also buy a prepaid card, give them the #, then spend it something else.

I have 3 cards - 2 Am Ex and one Visa. I use AmEx for just about everything and the Visa for the very few places that won't take AmEx. I've never had my cards compromised but if one them is hacked I can still use one of the others.

You could get a visa gift card and give them that #. You’d still lose the $ if you miss your appt, but if you’re mostly worried about giving them your cc info to have on file, it might make you more comfortable

My local Aveda salon does this too. It's not something that I would leave a good stylist over. I'm guessing they use a third party processor to store that information. If you have too much time on your time, you can look up PCI Compliance which are the standards by which this data should be stored.

NerdWallet on PCI

I do occasionally get visa gift cards and those are perfect for these instances. There is a salon that was recommended to me and giving cc info was the way to get an appointment. It really did turn me off. I'm still debating about using it. The thing with the gift cards is then each time you'd probably have to give a different card ( I only get like $100 or so per gift card when I receive them).

I just don't like to leave my cc info, although yes certain repeat vendors have it stored with my permission (hello A river). What I've thought about doing is to use a card we rarely use so that any activity on it stands out and we get notifications.

So far, I 've avoided going to that salon.

Even though I may be liable for only $50 it sure is a PIA to have to address it all.

I mistakenly gave my American Airlines CITI card to a fradulent site, and they immediately canceled it and sent a new one the next day. So, the credit cards will be super pro-active. My card is on file at several places and I’m not super concerned. I’m more concerned with people hiding income and not paying taxes when they take cash only. My hairstylist uses Square for payments.

Small businesses sometimes switch to credit because break-ins are becoming more and more of a problem.

Honestly this is where things are going, and it's actually kind of a bad idea to try to pay for a lot of things with cash. It's obviously less secure to carry it around. Most major credit cards offer fraud protection, insurance, and purchase protection. And rewards points are a great perk too.

If you're worried about security, choose a super strong password for your account. Or even better-- if you have a google account and your salon website lets you log in that way, then do that (my google acct is backed up with two factor authentication).

I understand the problem with no-shows and sympathise with those who must routinely deal with them. There are some clients who have absolutely no concept of the value of another's time, nor do they respect it in any form. That said, I'm not so sure I'd agree to this setup, and I'm really not even quite sure why -- except I was reminded of an incident a couple of years ago when I called to reschedule a nail appointment the afternoon before due to an emergency, and the owner got huffy and told me she'd have to charge me a $25 "last minute" rescheduling fee because my request to reschedule was within 24 hours of appointment time. Mind you - I did not want to cancel; I simply wanted to move to another slot. She did not have my card on file, so the only way she was extracting a fee from me is if I gave it to her - and I was not about to do so. I found a new nail salon. I think maybe I have a slight touch of PTSD (not really, but you know what I mean) from that encounter, and that's why I have a knee-jerk response to the thought of my card being on file at a hair salon.

In private practice healthcare many offices will have a last minute cancellation fee/no-show fee, often not triggered until the second time. However, both offices I have worked in who had this rarely used it, except if they really wanted the patient to leave the practice and go elsewhere, anyway.

And my niece said the same thing in the restaurant industry: they wouldn't necessarily take the fee the first time people didn't show up, but if they had repeat customers who continually no show it was a way to try to get them to never come back. And restaurant customers who are troublesome actually really like to be troublesome. There were customers at my SO's workplace who were regulars who complained every single time they ate there. Including one who would say "I have ordered this three different times and it's been bad every time".

@palimpsest I heard about the restaurant reservation issue! I shouldn't be shocked based on what we've seen of human behavior recently, but I still was when I read about it.

I do understand why salons would do this, especially if they've had a history of users making appointments and not keeping them. I like the idea of a using a Visa gift card for these situations. That's smart.

" There were customers at my SO's workplace who were regulars who complained every single time they ate there. Including one who would say "I have ordered this three different times and it's been bad every time"."

I don't think they were a slow learner, they were just a cheapskate looking for a discount.

Our doctor in Florida charges $100 for a last minute cancellation. Directly billed to you.

They also quickly stack up your next appointments. When we return, I will stop them from doing this.

I've been seeing my gal for 2yrs now. My CC is stored in their handheld machine. DH and my sister also use her. None of us are worried about our CC being compromised. (knock on wood, don't want to jinx myself!)

LOL Neko

I totally get what your saying....and I use my credit card ALL over the place...but I never put it on file after a purchase. But...a hotel or car rental requires a credit card to be on file...I do that. Sooooooooooo.....yes....I would put my CC on file with the salon....and I have several CC's so if I have to cancel one and get it reissued...I have spares.

ie: My discover Card was cancelled twice within a 5 day period...once. The card-fraud-police suspected fraud...and THEY caught it...and cancelled..reissued...