Online shopping is a great blessing for the buyers as they can buy the products of their choice at the same price without stepping out of the house. Sometimes, you could save money as well by shopping online which is not possible if you visit the store personally.
But like anything else, risks are involved as well as there are many hackers and fraud people who are waiting for you to commit a mistake so that they can hack your credit/debit card and can steal your money.
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Here are 7 online shopping hacks which you should know to protect yourself from hackers.
1. Use Credit Card With Online Fraud Protection
Usually, credit cards are more secured as compared to the debit cards. So, always try to use the credit card instead of a debit card. Then, there are many banks providing fraud protection.
So, ask your bank if they are providing the fraud protection insurance with the credit card online shopping or not? If they are not providing such a service, then you should look for another bank who is providing the insurance for online shopping against any frauds.
2. Check Your Statement Regularly
When you are an online shopper, you should make it your habit to check your bank statement regularly. Especially the statement of the transactions made by your credit card is more important.
Keep checking the statement and make it sure that you know about all the transactions. If you notice any charges which you doubt or you don’t remember then immediately contact with your bank and ask them to investigate that.
If you get hacked, they will disable your credit card for future online transaction and also good banks provide the refund as well if that was really a fraud transaction.
3. Never Provide Your Personal Details
You should never provide your personal details while shopping online. Or any details which have no relevance with the online shopping should be kept secret.
For any online transaction, you only need to provide your credit card details, phone number, and address. If there is no delivery required, for example for digital products, the address is not required as well.
So, if you are asked to provide your social security number, your national identity card number or anything else which is not required, you should immediately close that web page.
4. Always Shop From A Trusted Website
You should always select a trusted seller while shopping online. Try to buy from your local store which has a good reputation. You should also know what is the official website URL of your favorite store.
There are many scammers who use phishing to hack your information. Which means they create exactly the same website as a big name has, but they have a different URL. So you should know the exact URL to keep yourself safe.
If you are willing to buy women clothing then try to find the best online stores for women’s clothing.
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5. Always Look for Secure Protocol and Green Padlock
Never provide your credit card details on a website who is not using a secured protocol. If the online website doesn’t have a green padlock then your information is not safe.
Even if the seller is trusted but not using a secure protocol then your credit card information can be hacked easily by any hacker during the transaction process.
As an example, you can check Abby’s Hangout. They are using a secure https protocol and you can see a green padlock as well with the site.
6. Use Different and Difficult Passwords
While shopping online, you should always use difficult passwords which are not too obvious to guess. For example your date of birth, your full number or a part of it, your national security number or the name of your any kid or spouse.
A hacker will try a password with the combination of your personal data so don’t choose your password which can be easily associated with you. Also, use different passwords for different websites. Even the password of your laptop, mobile or email address should not be used for online shopping.
7. Always Check the Refund and Privacy Policy
This is also very important to check the refund policy and the privacy policy of the retailer. You should get your money back if you don’t receive the product for any reason.
This should be mentioned very clearly in the refund policy page of the retailer.
If you keep this thing in mind, you can protect yourself from online frauds and hackers while shopping online.
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Rashid Nawaz is a professional blogger and a News report. He works for SMH News Agency in Jhang and he is a news reporter on Dunya Urdu as well.
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