Many consumers avoid online purchasing. I think the main reason for that is related to security and privacy. Although online purchasing is very convenient for people, lack on security and privacy make people not to do an online shopping.
Thousands of products and services are sold online so people sometimes need to do an online shopping but they should follow some easy steps which make their payment more secure.
Secure online payments
The most dangerous step when doing an online purchasing is payment. Especially when the customers use credit cards they should be more aware. That is not mean people should stop doing online shopping but they must carefully choose websites where they can shop.
There are some useful tips to protect your information when making online payments:
1. Pay on a famous online payment gateway: many online businesses use an online payment gateway such as: PayPal, 2checkout, MoneyBookers, etc to receive payments. These gateways are very secure but when you use one of them that is not mean you are on a non-fake website and there is no guarantee to receive your product or service. The important point here is the trader can’t see your credit card information and it will just store on the gateway.
2. Look for the “s” after http: If you find an “s” after http that means you are on a secure surfing so always make sure of that when you make payments.
3. Use a prepaid credit card: many banks have prepaid credit cards and also MoneyBookers website has a prepaid MasterCard for just 10 Euro per year.
4. Don’t send your credit card information by email: especially for small online businesses, you shouldn’t send any details about your credit card. Sometimes well-known businesses will ask you to send a photograph for your credit card but only the last for digit should be shown.
5. Don’t use public computers: When you make online payments you shouldn’t use a public computer. It’s safer to use your own device.
6. Don’t save your credit cards information on your computer: When your device is hacked, the hacker can takes all your information.
Privacy
As I mentioned in the beginning, many people avoid online shopping because of a lack of privacy. There are some important tips before you do any online purchase:
1. Do your online shopping on a famous businesses websites.
2. You should read the terms and conditions carefully and make sure that the company doesn’t give your information to a third party.
3. Contact the business by email to double check that they don’t use your information for a different purpose.
