How to Make an RFID Blocking Wallet

We live in an age of electronics. First we went from using cash to cards, and now those cards, such as credit cards, use RFID chips to make wireless transactions. This is what tapping your credit card on a card reader is. Your credit card has an RFID frequency chip which a reader can read, and thus makes a transaction without you ever having to swipe a card or enter a PIN number. Sure, this is definitely convenient, but it has also led to a rise in crime related to stealing credit card information.

Criminals can literally walk around with RFID scanners and read your credit card data, and you won’t ever know that it happened until it is too late and you notice the charges being racked up on your credit card. You need to protect yourself from this kind of theft, and one of the easiest ways to do it is by using an RFID blocking wallet. In this article, we will discuss how to make an RFID blocking wallet.

How to Make an RFID Blocking Wallet

Now that you know what RFID is and why this is a big problem when it comes to credit cards and your personal information, it is time to make your own RFID blocking wallet. The first thing you need to know here is what materials and items you will need to make your own simple RFID blocking wallet pouch. What is nice about this RFID blocking wallet pouch is that it can be easily made out of materials that you most likely have laying around your home. It does not cost very much to make, plus it only takes a few minutes.

What You Need to Make an RFID Blocking Wallet

There are a total of 4 items you are going to need to make your RFID blocking wallet. These include the following.

• Scissors
• Duct Tape
• Packing Tape
• Aluminum Foil

By far the most important material is the aluminum foil, which creates a so-called Faraday Cage, which is something that has the ability to block radio and electromagnetic symbols. You cannot make one of these RFID blocking wallets without aluminum foil.

1. The first thing you need to do to make your RFID blocking wallet is to take the duct tape and lay out several strips which overlap with one another. You will most likely need to take around 4 strips, so you can create a solid sheet of duct tape. Be sure to make this duct tape sheet just a bit larger than the final RFID blocking wallet pouch needs to be.
2. The next step in making your RFID blocking wallet is to take aluminum foil, a large sheet of it, and very carefully lay it over the duct tape. You want to ensure that the aluminum foil is totally flat, even when you go to put it on the duct tape. Remember that aluminum foil is fragile, and duct tape is very adhesive, so if you do not put the aluminum foil on the right way the first time, you will end up with crinkles, bumps, and air pockets, none of which you want. When this step is done, a flat sheet of duct tape that has a flat sheet of aluminum foil stuck to it should be what you end up with.
3. Now it is time to take the packing tape which we discussed above, which is the wide and clear, plastic-looking tape used to seal boxes when packing up your belongings. Here you want to do exactly what you did with the duct tape, but now to the other side of the aluminum foil. You want to take strips of the packing tape and cover the aluminum foil, ensuring that the packing tape overlaps slightly to create a solid seal. For one, this will help protect the aluminum foil from ripping and getting damaged, and it will also prevent the metal foil from touching the chips on your credit cards. Now you should have a sheet of aluminum foil that has a layer of packing tape on one side and a layer of duct tape on the other.
4. This next step involves trimming the sheet of aluminum foil and tape down to size. First, take the scissors and cut the edges so you are left with a large rectangle of foil and tape, with clean edges. Now, take a credit card and place it onto the sheet. You want to cut the aluminum foil and tape sheet down to size so that it is about 1/3 inch larger than a credit card when the sheet is folded in half. You could also place 2 credit cards side by side, lengthwise, and leave about 1/3 of an inch of space on each side of the card, and at the tops and bottoms, and cut away the rest.
5. Now that you have what is essentially your pouch, fold the cut down sheet in half, which forms the pouch, and use duct tape to tape the edges together. What you should be left with now is a pouch of duct tape, aluminum foil, and packing foil, that has a single opening on one side. This is where you will put all of your credit cards inside that you wish to block from RFID scanners.

Conclusion

As you can see, you really only need to make an RFID blocking wallet pouch, not a whole wallet, and this will protect your credit card data from being stolen by criminals. It’s easy to do, it’s quick, and it doesn’t cost much, but it will provide you with all the protection you need.