Online Shopping Securely

Shopping online is easy, browsing huge ranges of goods and services from this country and many others, without having to leave the house. The basis of shopping is the transfer of money and the receiving of the goods you want, and to do that you need to take care of what you are buying, who you are buying it from, and how you pay for it.

Your personal financial information is as good as currency to cyber criminals, and you should look after it as you would physical currency.

Buying from the big name retailers usually assures you of the most up to date secure sites to deal with, but the high street of the internet is very, very, long indeed and you are bound to come across sites about which you know nothing.

A few brief checks that take little time at all, but can be fundamental in helping to keep your finances safe should always be used, the most obvious being, don’t get carried away with what you’re seeing, and remember that if a bargain appears that seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Check that you’re happy with the site, that it looks professional, no spelling mistakes or grainy graphics for instance, and if it has reviews or a blog, see what other people think about it.

It should show a physical bricks and mortar address, and ideally a phone number, which should all be part of a returns policy, if you’re buying goods. If there are no reviews try looking it up in a search engine for any insight.

If you have got as far as the payments page, check the site’s address in your browser bar. It should begin with https:/ not plain http:/. The S is most important, as it stands for Secure Socket Layer, which means that the information leaving your computer becomes encrypted and can only be decrypted by the seller’s terminal.

Remember that if a purchase is over £100 always use your credit card rather than your debit card. This is because you will receive a level of financial protection by the credit card issuer under section 75 of the consumer credit act.

This protection means that if the transaction doesn’t go as planned, such as the goods not arriving, arriving broken, or not fit for purpose, if the supplier doesn’t sort it out, or has sometimes happens, vanishes, the credit card company will most likely reimburse you.

These are just a couple of pointers to help your shopping online be positive and secure.