Shopping Online Safely – Steps I Take To Protect Myself
The dangers of online shopping are well known. Horror stories abound of people who have lost loads of money while shopping online. You may be tempted to shun all online shopping, because you just don’t want to take the risk.
However, as our lives become and more intertwined with activities on the Internet, it will become increasingly hard to avoid all online financial transactions. Instead of avoiding the issue, why not take steps to protect yourself?
I’ll outline steps I take to limit my online risk. Following these steps are no guarantee that I’ll never lose money. But they greatly reduce the chances that I will lose significant amounts of money with my online activities.
To start it’s important to recognize two levels of risk:
1. My Immediate Purchase Risk – the risk that I will lose money with the transaction I am currently making.
2. My After-the-Fact Financial Risk – the risk that my financial information will be stolen and used subsequent to the transaction I am currently making, possibly repeatedly.
While both kinds of risk...