Some major national chain restaurants have announced some new technology to prevent your credit card numbers from getting stolen.

• Tabletop swiping of your own card.
• A system that bills your card without your number being stored at the restaurant. Most places now keep either a paper receipt or computer record of your card number in house for billing purposes.

Fraud prevention helps credit card companies as much as consumers, since they write off billions of dollars each year in fraudulent charges. Merchants benefit too, as they end up eating some of those bogus charges. Consumers seldom pay.