May
21
Despite what young people sometimes think, many seniors are more than capable of embracing technology – heavens above, some seniors even use their computers to shop online! Nowadays you can buy just about anything over the Internet – and, you can buy it cheap and have it delivered right to your door or to someone else’s if you prefer.
So, the advantages of online shopping are obvious but you do need to be careful here about how secure it is to shop online. Credit card fraudsters are more than happy to clone cards and steal identities if they can get hold of them over the Internet. So, if you’re an online shopping newbie, then take a look at our tips and you shouldn’t have any problems:
1. Shop from established sites – you generally won’t have problems if you shop from big name online stores. If you want to buy from a website you haven’t heard of before then check out their security policy on the site. It’s also real important to check if you can contact the site if you have problems. Don’t buy from a site that doesn’t let you see an address and a telephone number.
2. Look for the security lock – when you get to the shopping cart area of a website you should be looking for two security signs. First, take a look in your browser window in the area where you type in a web address. A secure site will have ‘https:’ at the front of the web address. If it has just got ‘http:’ then it probably isn’t secure. Second, look at the bottom right hand side of your browser screen – if the site is secure you’ll see an icon of a closed padlock or key. If they aren’t there, or if they are open, then the site may not be secure to shop on.
3. Choose a secure password – a lot of people get hit on password fraud because they choose passwords that are easy to remember like their names and dates of birth. The best password to choose will combine letters and numbers and they won’t make any sense at all to anybody but you! Do remember though to write your passwords down somewhere where you can find them!
If you follow these tips then you should find online shopping a breeze! And, if you have any worries at all then remember that a lot of sites will also allow you to phone to give your credit card details when you want to order as an alternative. Happy shopping!
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One Response to “Safe online shopping tips for seniors”
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Pamela…
To much to shallow. This just sounds to liberal for me. Kinda brings back some memories of dating sites….