Is shopping online safe?

Online sales are becoming a more and more and more popular business mode. Especially in jewelry area. Many people may worried how safe it is to pay online and how to ensure receiving a quality product, or even time for delivery.How reliable is it to shop online? Are you sure or not with your major suppliers?
 

ssl guru

Free Member
Jan 10, 2011
7
1
St. Petersburg
Your worry are true. But now a days there are authenticated third party SSL Certificates which insure that the transaction done on the website is encrypted and even the site owner dont know the credit card details.
Whenever you buy anything online always check a Pad Lock symbol in task bar of the site and URL will become https instead of http. This will insure that the website is secured and not to worry.
 
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Its not so much risky to use online shipping services nowadays if you can check the SSL certificates first.You must also check whether they have reliable customers already or not.Some sites are not dependable at all but some are ok.
 
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Podge

Free Member
Jan 13, 2011
1,151
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I also had a bad experience with ebay/paypal after a purchase from ebay using paypal. I recieved a phonecall from paypal the following morning saying someone had accesed my account and made a purchase totaling about £700 they also attempted to purchase something else for about £800. As these wern't my spending habits the purchase and attempted purchase were flagged by paypal hence the phonecall.
However paypal still took the near £1500 from my bank account and it took them nearly a month to refund it. As soon as the money was back in my bank account I closed my paypal account and now very rarely use ebay.
 
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I also had a bad experience with ebay/paypal after a purchase from ebay using paypal. I recieved a phonecall from paypal the following morning saying someone had accesed my account and made a purchase totaling about £700 they also attempted to purchase something else for about £800. As these wern't my spending habits the purchase and attempted purchase were flagged by paypal hence the phonecall.
However paypal still took the near £1500 from my bank account and it took them nearly a month to refund it. As soon as the money was back in my bank account I closed my paypal account and now very rarely use ebay.

So sad to hear your experience. However, goods news is that your was back in your bank finally.
 
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jaden

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Jan 17, 2011
2
0
Hi,

I am newbie here.Millions of people buy online every day without any problems. You can purchase your favorite display stands online 24hrs a day safely and secure. Many of these selected products are available from stock and will be delivered within two working days! Delivery prices are calculated automatically together with VAT and an invoice will be emailed and posted shortly after placing your order. Should you wish to discuss your order please telephone.
 
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You can sadly get cheated in high street shops and services too.
I would suggest that it is also worth seeing how visible they are,

Do they give home address? If not be wary.
Do they show that they meet legislations such as distance selling regs?
Google them and their proprietors apart from their own website to see what people say about them.

Strangely the Internet is better in someways as it also includes what people say about services and other ventures the same people may have been iinvolved with.

Not sure anything is 100% safe but there are checks you can make and the greater the risk to you the more it is important to do the checks.
 
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I have a debit card which I am using more and more. It works like a credit card but of course you can only spend what you put on it.

So when I lost the card I was not too worried although there was a bit more than normal on it, I was still limited in any loss. In fact nothing was taken from it.

I tend to put money on just once a week when I am about to do my shopping, and also use it sometimes on the Internet, (for new sites I am not familiar with, and definitely for ebay!)but generally money does not hang about on the card so fraudsters would not be able to get much out.

The brilliant thing is it also gives me a hefty cashback at a load of shops including supermarkets and petrol and other high street stores which in my case has been coming to about £20 per month. (saveandbehappy.com)
 
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We can evaluate any website for "red flags", analyse the communication, check the supplier and give you our opinion if it is safe to deal with the seller. Often it is possible to identify a scammer on the very first stages of communication.
 
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Most online shops these days use a third party payment gateway eg SagePay, PayPal, PayPoint etc using a secure a SSL Certificate

But where ever you are entering your credit card details (be that at an online shop domain and/or third party payment gateway domain) not only should you ensure your browser has changed from http:// to https:// prior to entry - but in the case of IE you should click on the padlock and in the case of Firefox you should click on the blue area in the LHS of the browser bar, to view the SSL Certificate details. (Safari, Chrome and others will be similar)

In viewing the SSL Certificate details you should satisfy yourself that details that have been verified by the trusted third party (the issuers of the SSL Certificate) are to expectation :-

(CN) Website address
(O) Company Name
(L) City Town
(ST) County
(C) Country

So if you thought you were buying from say a UK company but (L)/(ST)/(C) comes up as Hong Kong (say) - you can make a valued decision whether to proceed or not.
 
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kumarjames

Free Member
May 26, 2011
3
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Online sales are becoming a more and more and more popular business mode. Especially in jewelry area. Many people may worried how safe it is to pay online and how to ensure receiving a quality product, or even time for delivery.How reliable is it to shop online? Are you sure or not with your major suppliers?

Hi Friend,
Your worry is very true. Online sales are very popular now a days but this is not a safe area. There are many chances for losing money in the online marketing. There is no certainty of pure business in online sales. I am not sure with my major suuppliers.
 
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Hi friend,

Thank you and question is so valuable. Online shopping has now become very popular and there will be a chance of loosing money. But some online safety tips will help make your shopping experience safe, secure, and pleasurable.
1-Get to know the merchant when shopping online2- Use different passwords3-Beware of bogus emails4-Safeguard and protect
Thanks a lot
Tom hanks
-----------------------------
Online shopping: cuttingedgehomes.net
 
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MatchReturn

Free Member
Oct 22, 2010
20
0
Wow, I'm genuinely amazed by the number of negative replies about online retailing in 2011. I use online shopping for just about everything from my groceries to clothes and office supplies.

There are various symbols you can look out for to verify a site is genuine or not, but there are so many well-known online retailers that safety is rarely an issue.

The main thing is to remember that if something looks to good to be true, it probably is. If a person on eBay who you've never heard of - and has no reviews - is selling something for £500 cheaper on eBay than even the largest company is selling it for, the chances are it's a scam. As for contacting the supplier, I'd imagine someone running a scam would be more than happy to reply so I don't think that would necessarily work.

Reviews on an independent and reputable review website that go back over a number of years are a great way to check out a company's history, as there would be no shortage of bad reviews if they were cheating their customers.
 
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FrankCott

Free Member
Jun 30, 2011
40
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Wow, I'm genuinely amazed by the number of negative replies about online retailing in 2011. I use online shopping for just about everything from my groceries to clothes and office supplies.

There are various symbols you can look out for to verify a site is genuine or not, but there are so many well-known online retailers that safety is rarely an issue.

The main thing is to remember that if something looks to good to be true, it probably is. If a person on eBay who you've never heard of - and has no reviews - is selling something for £500 cheaper on eBay than even the largest company is selling it for, the chances are it's a scam. As for contacting the supplier, I'd imagine someone running a scam would be more than happy to reply so I don't think that would necessarily work.

Reviews on an independent and reputable review website that go back over a number of years are a great way to check out a company's history, as there would be no shortage of bad reviews if they were cheating their customers.

What you say is absolutely true. To apply on ebay, that's an obvious way that you have to check their feedbacks and look for reviews. But what I said was in the situation when you cant find the item elsewhere, and that website is the only place has the item. What would you do about that if you really need the stuff from it?
 
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MatchReturn

Free Member
Oct 22, 2010
20
0
What you say is absolutely true. To apply on ebay, that's an obvious way that you have to check their feedbacks and look for reviews. But what I said was in the situation when you cant find the item elsewhere, and that website is the only place has the item. What would you do about that if you really need the stuff from it?

I'd be highly suspicious and would wonder why this company can find something that nobody else on the planet seems to be able to get hold of. Although with manufacturers this could be the case of course.

I'd probably start with Companies House or the equivalent to see who the company has been registered by, just to check that the company actually exists. Then I'd look at WhoIs to see who registered the domain. Maybe check the local phone directory online to see if the business is registered.

If it was a manufacturer you could always ask for references from their clients. When they give you contact info for other clients, ring their main phone line via their website. It would also be a good idea to look the person up to see if they're on LinkedIn, Facebook and run their name/email address through Pipl.com.

With most online businesses, there's a digital paper trail that goes with running a business online. If that information isn't available, I'd steer clear of them.
 
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M

Moody Alex

Online sales are becoming a more and more and more popular business mode. Especially in jewelry area. Many people may worried how safe it is to pay online and how to ensure receiving a quality product, or even time for delivery.How reliable is it to shop online? Are you sure or not with your major suppliers?

I only buy from trusted suppliers, mostly amazon.co.uk

I wouldn't buy jewelry though, that is a bridge too far for me (still)
 
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D

Digital Investments

As the demand and usage for online shopping increases, so does the demand, products and services of online security companies. Take Paypal as an example, many people dont realise this but they are actually an online security company - because if their business wasnt security then they wouldnt be the size that they are. People shop with Paypal because it's safe.
 
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