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Secure eshopping just in time for the holidays
With the holidays just around the corner and thoughts turning to finding the perfect gift, oftentimes the easiest and most convenient place to find that perfect gift is the Internet. Whether you begin shopping today, on Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving and sometimes thought of as the busiest online shopping day), or throughout mid-December (the actual busiest online shopping time), do you know how to keep yourself safe from disreputable merchants and identity thieves when shopping on the Web?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a page set up for online holiday shoppers (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/shopalrt.htm). The FTC's site offers several suggestions to help protect consumers against identity theft, as well as guidelines for making online purchases safely. Among the numerous recommendations: Know who you are dealing with. Since anyone can set up shop online, confirm the seller's physical address and phone number. Also, never enter financial or personal information through a pop-up message. Legitimate companies will never ask for this information via pop-ups.
The American Bar Association sponsors the site SafeShopping.org (http://www.safeshopping.org/). SafeShopping.org provides comprehensive advice to help consumers make informed choices when shopping on the Internet. Topics include security, privacy, payment, product, delivery and how to register complaints. A key tip from SafeShopping.org: It is always preferable to pay with a credit card rather than a debit card, check, money order or other types of payment. If you have an unauthorized charge on your credit card, under federal law you are only responsible for $50.
Passwords are another way to stay safely away from prying eyes when shopping online. The Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbbonline.org/idtheft/virtual.asp) recommends that you create unique and challenging passwords. If your password is "butterfly" or "Superman," it is time to change to something more secure. For tips on creating strong passwords, visit Microsoft's password page at (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/password.mspx). Other password advice: change your passwords regularly, do not enable the "remember my password" feature and never write down your password.
For added protection, try a one-time use credit card. This is a credit card that allows shoppers the flexibility of creating a credit card number that can only be used once. When the transaction is completed, the number expires. As a bonus, you set the dollar limit. For instance, if your total adds up to $36.74, you can set the limit on the card for $36.74.
There are several credit-card issuers that offer one-time-use cards for their customers: MBNA customers (recently acquired by Bank of America), can access MBNA's "Shop Safe" at https://www.bankofamerica.com/, CitiBank (http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/cardserv/advice/van.htm) and Discover (http://www.discovercard.com/deskshop). Be sure to read the terms and conditions of each site carefully since they vary by issuer.
Instead of heading to the mall this holiday season, go ahead and hit the Internet. Just remember to shop smart and shop safe.
—Linda Hasman, University Libraries