A massive number of people worldwide now use the World Wide Web to shop for anything from everyday items to expensive gifts, and with so much choice available to people it’s easy to see why. With a myriad of different sites availables (from Sainbury’s Online to eBay), you can pretty much guarantee you’ll be able to find whatever you’re after.
But with such a high volume of people using the internet to shop, the potential of fraud is worryingly high. Due to this added risk, a large number of people are still unhappy about the idea of sending their personal details over the internet, and you can’t really blame them. Someone committing fraud using your card can have a massive impact on your future finances, as it can result in you having a bad credit rating. So how we can make sure we’re safe when shopping on the internet?
There are several steps you can take to help improve your security, so let’s have a look at them here. First off, you should make sure that you only shop using secure websites there are a couple of ways (on the whole) you can tell if the site you’re shopping on is secure; look for a padlock symbol in the bottom corner or the website, or an unbroken key symbol. You can also look at the URL of the website as you’re about to make a payment; secure websites will use https instead of http. If you can see the https prefix on the payments page, then you’re safe in assuming the site is sending information over a secure sever, and is therefore safe.
You should also try and make sure that all your computer software is up to date and that you install any updates sent to you by your OS provider. On that note, you should also ensure you have all the latest updates for your antivirus and antispyware software (or that you have it installed in the first place).
The last one should be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people still fall prey to this kind of fraud. Don’t ever reply to emails that request your bank details, personal information or security information. Even if the email looks legitimate, it can often be a fake and on the whole, banks will never ask you for your account information via email. If you do receive emails like this, go to your banks website and use the contact information to get in touch with them on the phone. You should never try to get in touch using the information provided in the email in question. You may also get emails suggesting that they can repair credit of give you adverse credit cards. Although there are a lot of companies offering these services legitimately, they’re unlikely to email you and if you do require those services you should seek them out yourself.
