Online Shopping, is it safe?

In this article we want to discuss and share about the safety of online shopping. We have shopped online for several time. From our experience the most problematic about shopping online is the safety factor. Yes it is convenient, but there is a possibility of fraud. We just received a phishing email recently ( fake email which purpose is to get your personal particular, for more detail about phishing please check About Phishing at Wiki ).

Yes, safety is very crucial. How many of you feel doubtful of buying online because you are afraid that the product that you buy is not delivered?

How many of you are afraid that the merchant will misuse your credit card number? Which is more popular called as Identity theft.

We want to share with you from our experience in order to minimize the risk of fraud, phishing, or spoof website. There are 3 important points that we can take note:

1. Identity
Basically we need to know the merchant. Compare to the conventional shopping where we can meet the seller and look at the real product that we are going to buy, in online shopping we don't meet the seller and look at the product directly. What we can do here is to get as many information as possible provided by the online merchant from the website / blogshop. We will find out their identity, such as their name, location, picture, email, etc. If the merchant is really trustworthy, they will reveal their identity as many as possible.

2. Payment method
We learn that paypal is one of the solution for safe payment method, because the merchant will not be given your credit card no. Paypal become the mediator for the transaction to take place. But please be careful to check the secure link icon on the web page and make sure that you really make the transaction from the real Paypal. One fraud method is to make a fake website which is very similar to the real pay pal website and you will just key in your user name and password. If you are a paypal user, you are encouraged to read the safety resources provided ( Paypal security centre buying safely guide from Paypal ).
For bank transfer, it is considered safe because it is the merchant who will give the buyer their account no.

3. Ask before Buying
If you are really in doubt but you really want to buy the product, please send email to ask some question from the merchant. From your contact you can investigate more whether the merchant is reliable or not.

Afterall, the merchant who wants to have a long last business will never ever cheat their buyers or customers.

From the three things that we have shared, we managed to shop online safely so far. This article is open for any comment and discussion from other online shopper so that we may help one another to build a more convenient and safe online shopping environment. Feel free to give any comment! :D

We hope this article may help you and we wish you an enjoyable online shopping experience.