TAKE THESE PRECAUTIONARY STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF WHEN SHOPPING ONLINE

Most South Africans are falling in love with online shopping. What’s more exciting than sitting in the privacy of your own home, surfing for what you need - after a few clicks and short wait having it show up at your door step.

As nice as it might sound, it’s important to take precautionary steps to protect yourself when shopping online. While the increased availability of online shopping is convenient, it also makes it more lucrative for scammers to trick buyers into paying for goods they won’t receive or obtain their personal information for financial gain.

So, what can you do about it?

Be Aware Before You Click On Strange eMail Links

Beware of misleading ads and emails encouraging users to click on strange links. If you receive an enticing offer that sounds to good to be true, refrain from clicking on the link. Rather, go directly to the company’s website to confirm the offer is legitimate.

Be Sure To Do Your Own Homework And Due Diligence

Online criminals are always out there trying to scam you out of your credit card and personal information. Before making any online purchases, read reviews to hear what others say about the merchant. In addition, look for a physical location and any customer service information. It’s also a good idea to contact the merchant to confirm that they are legitimate.

Look For The Security Lock

You’ve probably seen that small lock icon in the corner of your URL field. That lock signals you that the web page you’re on has privacy protection installed. It’s called a SSL (secure sockets layer) Plus, the URL will start with “https,” for “hyper text transfer protocol secure.” These websites mask and transfer data you share, typically on pages that ask for passwords or financial information. If you don’t see that lock or the “s” after “http,” then the webpage isn’t secure. Because there is no privacy protection attached to these pages, we suggest you exercise caution before providing your credit card information over these sites.

Consider Pay With A Credit Card

Using a credit card is much better than using a debit card; there are more consumer protections for credit cards if something goes wrong. Or, you can use a third party payment service instead of your credit card. There are many services you can use to pay for purchases like PayFast without giving the merchant your credit card information directly.

Try A Contactless Payment App

There are apps that allows you to pay quickly and safely online by scanning a QR code at checkout. Zapper is a complete lifestyle solution enabling you to make fast, easy and safe online payments with a quick scan from your smartphone.

Nice To Read: You Can Now Checkout And Pay With Zapper

Be Aware On What Information You Give Away

Be vigilant to the kinds of information needed to complete your transaction online. If the online shop is requesting more information than you feel comfortable sharing, cancel the transaction immediately. You only need to fill out required fields at checkout and you should not save your payment information in your profile. If the account autosaves it, after the purchase go in and delete the stored payment details.

Check Your Bank And Credit Card Statements Regularly

Check your statements for fraudulent charges at least once a week. Good record keeping goes hand-in-hand with managing your CyberSecurity. Another tip for monitoring activity is to set up alerts so that if your credit card is used, you will receive an email or SMS message with the transaction details.

Keep A Clean And Virus Free Computer

Maintain a clean and virus free computer. Be sure that all internet-connected devices ‒ including desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets ‒ are free from malware and infections by installing and running a good Anti-Virus and Internet Security software with only the most current versions.

Nice To Read: Useful Tips to Keep Your Laptop & Desktop Safe and Secure

Here at Tsele le Tsele we believe that online shopping doesn’t have to be dangerous if you follow the above mention tips.

We’ve given you some online shopping safety tips because it can be frustrated when cybercriminals are trying to steal your credit card details and even your identity. But with a Premium Total Internet Security Solution, you can check each online store is safe, create a unique password for each site, log in using virtual keyboards to avoid keylogging and store your passwords securely on all your PCs.

Safe Shopping