You can save time and money by doing your shopping online, compare prices easily, get great deals and even have everything delivered directly to your door.
Being online unlocks the potential to make BIG money savings on everything from utilities, insurance, holidays, and shopping. With the stretch on our wallets, it’s the most valuable tool to make sure you are paying the best price for the household services and goods that you want and need.
If you are an internet novice and not confident shopping online, then Learn My Way have created this great course to give you the skills and confidence to save you money. Learn my way – spending money online.
Although online shopping is a great way to shop around with ease, while its popularity has increased so have the risks. Thankfully knowing a few simple rules, you can have a safe and secure shopping experience.
1. Shop with reputable retailers
Just like going to a store, go direct to retailers’ websites that are familiar and you know and trust, rather than searching an item in the search engine. Fraudsters can produce sophisticated copies of sites and might trick you to purchase from them. Online retailers should also provide their full address and contact information on their site.
2. Make sure the website is secure
Before entering any personal information first check the site is secure. In the address bar, the site -address should be displayed as “https”, the “s” meaning secure. Also look out for the padlock symbol. By clicking this it will display that the connection is secure, and the site is certified.
3. Pay using a credit card
Using a credit card for online shopping is the safest way to make purchases due to their payment protection, which means you don’t have liability in the event of a fraudulent transaction. If you don’t want to use a credit card, online services such as PayPal also add extra protection to purchases.
4. Be careful using public Wi-Fi
It’s important to be careful when using public Wi-Fi to make purchases as it may be more vulnerable to fraudsters snooping. It’s easy to shop from wherever you are in the world but without a trusted connection it is a risk. If you have data on your mobile phone or can access a council library computer, these are more secure ways to purchase online.
5. Don’t overshare information
Only provide information that you would typically expect when making a purchase. Anything else should raise suspicion.
6. Update your antivirus
Scams evolve and the threat to your data changes regularly. Make sure you keep your software up to date so you can protect your data from the latest threats.
7. If a deal is too good to be true, then it probably is
Be smart when shopping online. Yes, there’s great deals online but something too good to be true usually is and you should step back and do a little research before making a purchase.
