12 Essential Tips For Safe Online Shopping

In this fast living style, online shopping made our life much simpler;no more travelling,no need to spend hours for checking different stores.You can sit back in your home,order the product online and you will get it in within hours,depending on the service.

Smart shopping is the most effective way to save these days! But are you safe doing online shopping ? Worried ! Chances are there,If you got scammed you can lose thousands of dollars in one minute.Check out these 12 essential tips for safe online shopping.

1.Check Your Computer For  Keylogger Malware

I think this is the  first step you  have to take care  while doing online shopping.None of the security measures will work if your computer is infected with keylogger malware.These programs captures your keystrokes and send them to the hackers without your knowledge.The best way to get away from these malware is installing proper antivirus software and update it regularly.

Do Read : 5 Best Free Malware Removal Tools Worth Downloading.

2.Encryption URLs

This is the second step you need to check while doing online shopping.Check the online shopping website authority.The most obvious way to identify a safe website is to look for an “https” URL, as opposed to a simple “http” URL. That extra “S” indicates security, meaning all the data you entering to this website being encrypted.

3.Check for security service provider

You must check the online shopping website security service provider.Most of the trusted online shopping websites got secured by Security providers like VeriSign and McAfee or any other service provider.Click on those security service providers logo to confirm the identity.Security seals, however, are just a starting point, not a guarantee that you are safe on doing shopping . Nor does the lack of a seal mean a website is necessarily risky.

4.Check for SSL certificate

You can check the SSL certificate of any e-commerce website by going to the address bar.If the shopping websites SSL Certificate is valid, it will show a green bar on the address bar or the shopping website company name in green color.Most of the major modern web browsers supports this feature.

5.Do a reserch about the shopping website

You can check any shopping website credibility by googling about that site. You can do this on websites that track well known (and lesser known) scammers, and report them worldwide.

If you know of any phishing scams, or the like, you can contribute to these sites and stop others being caught out too. There are forums, websites and email newsletters available for the latest Scam news.Subscribe to any of them immediately.

6.Use Virtual Cards

While doing online shopping use any one-time card that you already setup with your credit card provider.Most of the banks and Credit card service providers now providing one time virtual cards For extra protection

7.Use Payment Services

I think one of the safest way to do online shopping is using any payment services such as PayPal,Google Checkout ,BillMeLate and many more there.These payment services offer some useful additional security because you entrust your sensitive account information to just one company ;not to every online shopping website you patronize.

8.Check shopping portals and communities

Check out the online shopping portals and communities around you and search for the online store from you wish to make a purchase and look for the genuine customer reviews and ratings.

9.Ignore Suspicious Offers Send Via Email

Spam shopping websites offers huge discounts and bargains via email with any malicious links or file attachments that leads to your computer hijacking.

10.Double Check and Verify Unbelievable Offers

Be alert ,Lot of Spam websites offering mind blowing promos and discounts.These offers may be lead to web threats.Please cross check with your friends and colleagues before you are going to accept any such offers.

11.Get Away From Promoted Search Results

If you are planning to purchase anything from any online store, Please make sure you are using the trusted online shopping websites such as AMAZON,EBAY,BESTBUY etc.Most of the time when you search online for any query you will be come up with any promoted search results ,because most of the time the promoted search results will come up on the top of the page.Promoted Search results can be rigged to lead you astray.Stay away from these links.

12.Use coupons and Promos that are from a reliable source

Finding a great money-off bargain is exciting and we got lot of online discount coupon and promo code websites,but don’t get carried away and click lots of links and get trapped.Use coupons that are only from a reliable source such as retailmenot.com