Credit cards are the most convenient way to shop online. With credit card comes the ability to shop from anywhere and anytime. Due to all these facilities and simplified online shopping procedures, credit cards are at the centered of an e-commerce boom. But, instances of credit card fraud while online shopping are not unheard and are growing day by day. What can save you from such online credit card frauds? In this two part article series we look at 10 vital tips to make sure that you don't fall into these traps.
1. Yellow lock symbol in your browser's status bar
Modern web browsers ( a software that is used to surf the internet) are quite safe and respond to safe sites. They do it by embedding a yellow lock in the status bar of your browser whenever they go to a secure website. Always check for this yellow lock in the status bar of your browser.
2. https:// and yellow address bar
Whenever you reach a secure website the url of your website will change from http:// to https:// and along with this, if you are using a latest web browser the color of the status bar will also change to yellow. Some browser show a yellow lock right there in the address bar.
3. Encryption
E-commerce websites, which practice safe shopping experience for their customers use 128 bit encryption and more to transfer the data. This is the latest and most secure way of transmitting your credit card information and personal details over the internet. If a shopping website uses this encryption technology it will say it somewhere on their website. The usual place to check is the footer or header of the website where the logos of such encryptions are displayed prominently.
4. Hacker safe
There are website certification programs which test and certify whether a particular website is hacker safe or not. This testing is done on a regular basis and the dates are displayed along with the certification. A website which has undergone some kind of hacker safe testing is definitely a better bet to depend on.
5. Privacy Policy
Don't do business, or shop on websites which don't have a privacy policy clearly written in an understandable format. The Privacy Policy of any website is a document that tells you how the website will use the credit card and other vital personal information from collected from you. The privacy policy should clearly state that the website won't share, sell or use the information collected by you in any other manner so as to threaten your financial, personal or online security.
The second part of this article series takes a look at 5 more vital online shopping tips.
