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Actually, there's a very elegant solution. Get an eel-skin wallet which erases magnetic information.

Eel-skin wallets are made of two types of eels. Originally, they were made of a particular species, which was very expensive. Then someone decided to make cheap eel-skin billfolds. They used a different species. One which erases the magnetic strips. (at least it does on credit cards). I found this out much to my

Has this happened to anyone else?

Yes - check the back issues of comp.risks. It isn't the eel skin but the magnetic catch on the wallet that trashes your cards.

Ian Turton - School of Geography, Leeds University 0532 -333309