Mobile wallets are 'convenient,' but many wonder how safe they are - WPTV News Channel 5 West Palm

Your GPS, your music, your camera, and our friends' telephone numbers each unrecorded connected your smartphone these days.

But, there's different diagnostic not everyone is taking vantage of: your mobile wallet. It has present go modular connected iPhones and astir Androids.

So should you usage it, and is it secure?

Erin Hinebrock is sold connected mobile wallets.

We recovered her vacation shopping, utilizing conscionable her Apple Watch synched to her iPhone, to pay.

"You conscionable treble pat connected your watch," she said. "And, you person paid."

She is 1 of millions of Americans who present store with mobile wallets, and she loves it.

"My paper comes up and it's ace easy," she said. "I don't person to fuss with getting my recognition paper out, oregon currency oregon anything."

Mikaela Van der Wally and Kelly Carson ain a trade boutique. They accidental the exertion makes transactions overmuch easier.

"Not having to messiness with change, not having to transportation alteration astir each day, is specified a help," Carson said.

Are the fears justified?

Nathan Grant with MoneyTips.com says helium understands wherefore immoderate radical mightiness hesitate to usage a mobile wallet.

"I deliberation the fearfulness comes from, 'well, I don't privation to prevention my idiosyncratic info connected my phone," helium said.

But, Grant says adding a debit oregon recognition paper to your mobile wallet really adds a furniture of protection, due to the fact that a mobile wallet uses an encrypted fig to implicit the transaction, not your existent recognition paper number.”

"What it does," helium explained, "is it allows the outgo to beryllium processed without exposing your existent information."

If you suffer your telephone oregon smartwatch, your wallet much than apt stays safe, helium said.

"You're gonna request either similar a passcode, fingerprint scan, possibly a look scan if you person Apple products."

The large mobile wallets are Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay -- with apps already integrated successful your mobile device.

On apical of security, meantime, mobile wallets tin assistance escaped up abstraction successful your existent leather wallet.

And they tin store different information, specified arsenic performance and hose tickets, and edifice reservations.

One past reminder though: Grant says support a paper oregon currency handy. Most retailers, large and small, judge phone-based payments, but your section vicinity store whitethorn not.

Erin Hinebrock loves the flexibility, saying "it's a batch easier. I usage it each the time."

And that mode you don't discarded your money.

_______________

Don't Waste Your Money" is simply a registered trademark of Scripps Media, Inc. ("Scripps").

Like" John Matarese Money connected Facebook

Follow John connected Instagram @johnmataresemoney

Follow John connected Twitter (@JohnMatarese)

For much user quality and wealth redeeming advice, spell to www.dontwasteyourmoney.com