Protect Yourself with These 5 Tips When Enjoying Online Shopping #BlackFriday #CyberMonday #Christmas2020
Christmas is coming soon! Everyone are excited about all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events coming upon us, I believe we all used to do online shopping and e-commerce more than usual by the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lockdown, ongoing social distancing and restrictions.
Thanks to internet, A lot more attractive products with great price can be purchased with a tap from your fingertip, save time and money.
However, as a smart online customer, beside enjoying COVID-safe online shopping, it is important to be aware and take the necessary precautions to stay safe when shopping online too. They always target on every unaware customers by standard scam techniques, e.g. phishing message, email and ‘hidden’ malware in order to steal your credit card information and credentials, bogus websites that offer products that don’t ever exist.
So, here are 5 simple tips that you can follow and be aware of :
💳 1. Pay with a credit card instead of a debit card
If you use a debit card, in most cases, your orders are made without your permission and the $$$ is withdrawn directly from your account. On the other hand, credit cards often provide more fraud prevention comparing to debit cards. Plus, if you use credit card for payment, you have more time to dispute fraudulent charges and the bank can withhold payment while they investigate the incident.
Apart from checking your bank statements, it is a good practice to review the transaction history of your credit card(s) and account(s) regularly, examine for any unusual activity, such as unauthorised payments so that you can inform your bank in advance whenever you spot anything suspicious.
🔑 2. Enabled MFA (2FA) for all online transactions with a strong secured password
A strong and more complicated password combination is a common practice, but please dont keep reusing the same password across all your accounts. In addition, by enabling Multiple-Factor Authenication (MFA) for your online transactions and account logins gives you an extra shield of protection. Having your MFA turned on, you will be alerted when any fraudulent transactions that are about to take place, offering you time to alert your bank and lodge a report.
🗃️ 3. Do NOT Store your credit card information online
Some online retailers offer a saving option to store your credit card information after you have made a transaction. While this is convenient as this can speed up the transaction process in the future, you maybe putting your credit/debit card information at risk. Major companies have suffered data breaches and had their customers’ credit card information stolen. I strongly advise you not to provide any credit card details over email or a phone call.
*Here is a good tool to check if your account (email address) has been compromised by any data breaches : https://haveibeenpwned.com/
📝4. Disable your browser’s autocomplete feature
Likewise, you should avoid having your credit card information stored on your browser by disabling the autocomplete feature.
In Google Chrome, go to Settings -> Autofill -> Payment methods section, delete any credit card information that has been stored automatically and toggle off the Save and fill payment methods and Allow sites to check if you have payment methods saved option.
In Firefox, go to Options -> Privacy & Security section -> History, select Use custom settings for history under the drop-down menu and uncheck Remember search and form history.
In Safari, go to Preferences -> AutoFill, uncheck the options to remember form data, including the option for Credit Cards.
🕵️ 5. Be vigilant against phishing or bogus websites
Cyber criminals can create websites that mimic popular sites to trick people into revealing their personal information via different methods. One of the example they use is substituting visually similar characters in the web address, e.g. www.amaz0n.com , so be sure to review the url carefully. One further suggestion is, you can use some additional tools like Google Safe Browsing to check the safety status of the current website.
By following these 5 tips, you can have a greater piece of mind when you shop online!
As today is Black Friday, here is one more extra bonus tip.
🎁 Be wary of offers that are too good to be true
Well, we all know during all the ongoing events, online shopping sites offer a lot of attractive black-friday deals, cyber criminals often take advantage of these popular periods to carry out scams. When in doubt, remember the old adage,
‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’
While there are many genuine exciting deals that can give you good value for money, you should always be wary of offers that sound unbelievable!
If you believe you have fallen victim to any online scam or fraud, you should take the below action:
- Change your password for the affected account immediately and all other online accounts where you may have used the password (be sure to use a different password for each of your accounts)
- Inform the bank of the fraudulent transaction(s) and request for a card replacement if necessary
