How to Safeguard Your Credit Card While Shopping
How to Safeguard Your Credit Card While Shopping
Cyber Crime and “Identity theft” seem to be everywhere in this fast-paced world. It would seem wherever there is a cashpoint, ATM, or an online checkout that there is, hiding in the shadows, strangers who, without any feelings whatsoever, have one thing on their mind to get hold of your credit card number and spend your very hard-earned cash. Cash which in many instances you will never get back.
In this short “How-To Narrative,” commissioned by BarginBrute.Com America’s favorite place to shop online, we hope to show you a few ways you can secure that magic piece of plastic from unscrupulous scammers, who in many cases, are standing just inches away from you in your favorite store or restaurant.
Remember, never let your credit card out of your sight for any reason whatsoever. Restaurants, especially touristy restaurants, are notorious for scamming some of their clientele. In most cases, you will not even know if you have been a victim until you arrive back home after your vacation. So with this in mind, never give your credit or debit card to any wait staff for them to take to the payment point, ask if you can pay at the cashpoint yourself.
Next, never when paying at a till point in a traditional brick and mortar shop, sign up for a store card. The questions they ask you (email address, telephone number, and full name) can be overheard by the person standing right behind you in the queue. In some cases, this is all the information they require to start stealing your identity.
Once you have paid, always check if you have been given your credit card back. Once sure, immediately place it back into your purse or wallet.
If, when shopping at a traditional brick and mortar shop who are still using the old fashion manual credit card machine, think of paying by cash. I will not allow them to use this type of device as they tend to print out a copy of your entire credit card, including the number.
Online shopping: The popularity of online shopping has exploded over the past ten years, so be careful, unlike our hosts BargainBrute.Com, some online retailers use an unencrypted connection. Only purchase from a website that uses a secure connection. This can be verified by looking for the HTTPS:// sign found at the beginning of the website, (see example below) the part in red signifies that they are using this secure way of paying, meaning that your credit card details are safe. You will also see a little green padlock next to the website address in your browser.
https://www.bargainbrute.com/
Again, sealing with online purchases, never deal with an online business that asks you to send credit card details to them by Email. They have no reason to do this except to use your credit card details fraudulently, and other entities within the worldwide web can easily intercept it.
PayPal: I have linked my credit card with my PayPal account. This allows me to make all online purchases through PayPal while ensuring that the funds still come from my credit card. Sometimes, if available, you will even receive extra air miles, etc., while still keeping your credit card number safe. However, remember, you must ensure that you keep your PayPal password safe, or scammers will be able to access your credit card via your PayPal account, so defeating the objective.
Before we end, remember this: Over $1.4 billion was lost to internet fraud in 2017 alone, and according to the security giant Mcfee, cybercrime cost the global economy at least $600 billion, a whopping 8% of total global GDP.
So in ending, enjoy shopping, but keep your plastic safe. Many thanks for reading and my thanks go to my hosts America’s favorite place to shop online BargainBrute.Com, for giving me the platform to write upon.
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