Online shopping is booming. It seems every few months a new website changes the way consumers can access retailers’ best deals from the comfort of our own home, freed from
credit card terminals. But the cost of this convenience is the added risk of fraud as scammers and thieves use every means possible to come at consumers, tricking them into divulging sensitive information, hacking payment processing systems to divert payments, or breaching merchant security to get a copy of consumers’ credit card information. However, as consumers we are hardly without ways to protect ourselves.
First off, common sense and a little bit of paranoia can go a long way in protecting everyone who uses credit cards online from scams. Phishing emails can seem pretty unbelievable for those of us who have seen several hundred of them, but for a person just learning that they don’t have to use America Online to access the internet, the new world of online payments may appear defined by new rules devoid of conventional logic. So no matter who you are, triple-checking any source before you share information with them is a good fail-safe tactic.
For example, no online retailer that uses your credit information will ever ask for it through an email. They will send you to their site. If they don’t, be skeptical. If they do, check the URL in the address bar at the top and if it doesn’t clearly match the company’s website address, be skeptical. These are simple steps that many new online-credit-card users would not think of but will save them from any number of scams.
Second, don’t use online merchants that are small or unknown without checking their status online by Google searching the company’s name. If you are skeptical, find a merchant that can verify its security. Similarly, never EVER enter credit card information into website credit card terminals that start with anything other than “https”. The “s” at the end means it is a secure and encrypted connection, while the more common “http” start, without the “s”, is not encrypted. This small added layer of security blocks a large number of strategies to view your credit information while it is in transit.
The truth is that we trade a little bit less security for a lot more convenience when we shop online and use our credit cards without physical credit card terminals. But by exercising caution and common sense, it is possible to significantly decrease the odds of being the victim of an online credit card scam.