I do not use credit cards in the DR and have never owned a smart phone. Perhaps one day I may be forced into using both. Hopefully not.
While living in the DR, I have been a victim if identity theft twice back in the USA. Once for $29,000 in Queens, NY and another time for about $10,000. I never had to pay anything on either hack job except for the damage it did to my absolutely stellar credit reports. It took those reports years to recover.
We had a DR credit card with BanReservas hacked and used in Santiago for over $1,000 US in value while we were visiting the US. There was no way to get the money back from BanReservas. So no more DR credit card use.
Up until now, I have avoided getting my own smart phone. I have never owned a smart phone.
Check your balances every day, and twice a day if you use such methods for payment in the DR as are described in this thread. I await the many threads which will be spawned here on DR 1 about fraud using this type of payment system.