Safety Practices for Online Transactions

The internet has made life extremely easy, savings us precious time and even money as we go about conducting our daily tasks from banking and shopping to making holiday plans and reservations. However, it has also made it easier for fraudsters and pranksters to get hold of your information and cause you some embarrassment, and maybe even drain your bank account of your hard earned money. So, how do you protect yourself from the dangers that the Internet is fraught with, yet make the best use and enjoy the benefits to the fullest? It’s not that difficult, and here is how you can do it.

Check the website

This is one of the easiest and the first security check that you need to do. It is a good thing to make this a regular habit. Do not follow any links from your email, instead search for the website using your favorite search engine, and click through the result to ensure that the website you have reached is a genuine one, and not a phishing site. Once you are on your website, and if intend to make any kind of transaction, make sure that the website is SSL protected.SSL provides you with sound privacy protection by encrypting the channel of communication between you and the website, so that anyone ‘sniffing’ the network cannot view the details of your transaction. To find out if your transaction is guarded by SSL, look for the picture of the unbroken key or closed lock in your browser window. Another quick way to see if SSL is guarding your transaction is to check the URL of the site you are visiting. It should change from “http” to “https” when processing secure transactions. If you are intending to make an online transaction for the first time on a particular website, then read the user reviews on the site, and also look them up. If you come across an offer or a deal which is too good to be true, then is probably is something you need to be even more cautious about.

Monitoring is the key to staying secure

With the option of creating multiple email accounts and even separate identities, it is easy for us to get carried away, and have several accounts. This can lead to a mess, with the user not really knowing where his important mails end up. It is a good idea to have a single account for all your online transactions. From creating a new account on a merchant website, to any mail that you receive on placing an order, you can easily track your mail, and ensuring that you are aware of any transaction that happens on your account.

You should also designate one credit card for your online transactions. If your bank (and most bank do) allows you to make a virtual credit card, then go ahead and make use of the facility. Virtual credit cards offer you complete security while shopping on the Internet, without revealing your actual credit or debit card number. You can set your own limit for the virtual credit cards that you generate, and you can use it on any merchant website that accepts regular credit cards.

These may seem simple, sensible and commonplace tips, but they are also the most overlooked ones. If you knew about them, and did not practice it, then it’s time to start now. If you did not know about them, then you do now. Go ahead, make your online transactions secure.