Shopping online has many benefits, especially today.
You can see anything and everything about the product. Websites give great descriptions which tell you practically everything
Reviews on products are much better online. You can see the experience that people go through after buying the product, and even share your own.
It’s easy to find out if a website is honest or not. Like reviews on products, there are reviews on websites.
However, there is one important difference. Shopping online requires a credit card. There are always the risks of hackers hacking card numbers from websites, or even credit card numbers stolen from huge businesses, like hotels.com. Therefore, it’s important to be safe when shopping online.
The most important thing you can do is use virtual credit cards (also called prepaid cards). These are credit cards which generate a random card number so that no one knows your real one. Some let you specify your own expiration date for the number, and set a capped spending limit. So, for example, if you want to buy a camera which costs $300, just make the cap $300 or a little over and the expiration within a month. No need to worry about what happens to that credit card number. It will expire in a month (or whenever you want it to) and its limit is filled up.
Many banks and credit card companies already offer this for free, and its very easy to use. In fact, most people already have an account with a bank or credit card which could be used to generate virtual account numbers.
Here are some of the companies which allow virtual cards:
Bank Of America call it Shopsafe.
Citi Bank call it Virtual Account Numbers
Paypal also have this, but it seems like they don’t generate a 3 digit security code, so most sites will not accept it.
Is your favorite bank/credit card company not listed? A simple search on their website or call would confirm whether they have it or not.
Get on with the shopping. You don’t have to fear anymore about whether your credit card number will be stolen by a hacker or a silly website error.
Have more advice for safe shopping? Comment and share.
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