8 tips for shopping on line safely

How To Know If An Internet Merchant Is Legit

Here are eight easy tips to protect yourself when shopping on line.

1. Ask your friends: Of course. A personal referral from someone you trust is your best bet. Be mindful of the source though.
2. Browse forums: Almost every subject has a forum these days. Forums are discussion-based web sites. Somebody has probably already had the same questions you have and it’s already been answered on a forum. For example, if you’re looking to buy a cell phone, you can search for “cell phone forum” and come up with lots of public forums on cell phones.
3. Once you get to a forum, use the search function to find out if anyone has posted a question similar to yours. As an experiment, I just went to one and by reading a few posts, discovered how to get the best deal on a cell phone plan for a particular carrier. Take postings with a grain of salt and look for experienced and trusted posters (many forums have a blurb that tells you about each post author and how many posts they’ve made). Look for recommendations of these experienced posters.
4. Testimonials: The other day, a business service called me up and mentioned that a local business had use their service for years and had reported a 35% increase in sales. I took notes, searched for the business on the web and called the guy up. It turns out his business had increased over the years but he could not attribute the increase to the company that had called me! Many sales pages have testimonials on them. Some include a name, or even a link. If no link, do a search for the person and contact them.
5. Google’s “Site Search”: You can sometimes find interesting information, discounts, hidden offers and more by doing a “site search.” Go to Google and type in “site:www.example.com” (replacing www.example.com with the web site you want to research).
6. Use Google’s cache to see what was on a page earlier. Sometimes earlier versions of the site can provide further information.
7. Use The Wayback Machine to find out how long a web site has been up and what it looked like earlier. It’s difficult (not impossible) for a merhcant to stay in business for long if they’re ripping people off. For one, they’ll lose their ability to process credit cards. If a merchant has been on the Internet for several years, it’s a good sign. The Wayback Machine can give you a good indication of how long a web site has been up and what that web site used to look like. Here’s the URL http://www.archive.org/.
8. When you order, use your real email address and phone number. You can order something from a legitimate merchant and still not get it! Even if the merchant makes a good effort to get it to you. A lot of people use free email accounts, such as Yahoo or Hotmail and fake phone numbers when ordering on line. Look, if you don’t trust a merchant enough to give him your “real” email address, you don’t trust them enough to give him your credit card number. Merchants use your email address and phone number to contact you if there’s a question or problem with your order (suppose you typed your address in wrong). Do you want them to be able to get ahold of you if there’s a question? Merchants sometimes check phone numbers to make sure the person ordering lives in the same area as the shipping address. If not, it’s a possible sign of fraud. The use of free email accounts is a red flag to merchants. Many fraudulent purchases use free email accounts. And in my experience, email to free email accounts gets blocked by spam filters more often. I’ve had several cases where I’ve tried to contact a customer and found that their email bounces back or doesn’t get through. If you have a more permanent, legitimate email address, use it when ordering.

Enjoy safe shopping…

“Idiot in charge”