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Millions of people
will be shopping via the web this year, In spite of all the hype of
identity theft and online fraud. There will be about a 3rd
of these shoppers will experience some type of on line fraud. So
here are some things to help you protect your self online.
Never use the auto
fill option in your browser, as this can store your credit card
numbers and anybody can use that to make fraudulent purchases. Also
do not use the remember password function as this makes it easy for
someone to gain access to your online accounts. Another thing you
can do is delete your cookies and temp files, because the browser
may keep personal information in these directories.
You can also protect yourself by checking out a reseller’s site
before you make a purchase. The best way to do that is go to
www.resellerratings.com this site holds ratings for thousands of
reseller web sites and is a good way to see how they treat their
customers. Another good practice is to only use resellers that use
HTTPS:\\ (secure HTTP) shopping carts. This means that the data sent
over the internet is encrypted and stored in a secure server. This
means it is much safer for you as a shopper.
So many people are
using Ebay these days because you can find almost anything at a
reasonable price. However with Ebay you have to be especially
careful because a thief on Ebay has nothing to loose he can cheat
you out of your money and or personal information and then simply
change his user name and do it to some one else. One way to guard
against this is always check the feedback rating of the customer if
it is 95% or higher then this person is probably a good reseller.
BUT, don’t just look at the percent of positive feedback, look and
see how many positive feedback they have total. This will tell you
if this person has been selling for a while and will tell you a lot
about his shipping time and communication practices. When buying
from a person on Ebay it is common practice to use Paypal. Paypal is
an online money transfer company. They are safe, secure, and had
lots of tools to help you if you do get taken advantage of.
So I hope this article helps you have a safe and merry Christmas.
Jeremy M. Robertson
Senior Technician
The Computer Generation Inc. |
