or some consumers, paying at the checkout line becomes a lot simpler when they can forgo the plastic card and pay with their phone. Mobile payment applications like the Isis Mobile Wallet, Google Wallet, Square, and LevelUp turn your cell phone into a payment source: Just store your debit card or credit card information on the phone and scan the device at checkout. "Consumers like the convenience factor," says Sarah Jane Hughes, a commercial law professor at Indiana University. But is this new form of payment safe?

[See Is It Safe to Bank Online?]

Approximately 12 percent of mobile phone owners made a mobile payment in 2011, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve. According to the survey, concerns about the security of the technology were the primary reason respondents gave for not using mobile payments. Hughes says one security advantage to using mobile payments is that "your phone normally stays within your line of sight.