Will a permanent magnet erase data on my credit cards?

Posted by admin on January 29th, 2010 and filed under card magnet | 5 Comments »

do I need to keep permanent magnets away from any credit or debit cards?

You need a REALLY strong magnetic field to wipe out a credit card. A large neodymium magnet might do it.

Basically, I wouldn’t worry about it much.

I think the mythbusters did a segment about this, testing to see which size magnets could erase the magnetic strip on a card, and only the biggest baddest magnet could do it.

5 Responses

  1. Sweetu Says:

    yea, i think you do/
    References :

  2. lavalamp3773 Says:

    You need a REALLY strong magnetic field to wipe out a credit card. A large neodymium magnet might do it.

    Basically, I wouldn’t worry about it much.

    I think the mythbusters did a segment about this, testing to see which size magnets could erase the magnetic strip on a card, and only the biggest baddest magnet could do it.
    References :

  3. Brandon Says:

    Yes, I would advise keeping credit cards away from magnets of all types. I am in AP Physics at the moment, and we have done experiments testing this. Mythbusters HAS been wrong before, and they are here.

    It depends on the cardmaker, but in most cases, magnets will DEmagnetize the strip on a credit/debit card, making the card practically useless.
    References :
    AP Physics

  4. xezlec Says:

    Yes, but if it’s not a very strong magnet, it might take a long time.
    References :

  5. wangarific Says:

    It depends on how strong the magnet is but in general I would keep credit/debit cards away from them. You don’t want to find out they’ve been affected at the register!
    References :

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