5 Online Shopping Traps to avoid this season

Online shopping made it easy and convenient!

Shopping has become so easy these days just with the click of a mouse or with the swiping of your card. Doing your festive shopping online can be a great way to avoid the crowds. It also helps you compare different products and their prices and choose the most suitable one for your needs. Ordering something online takes less time than going to the market and buying something. Whether you’re buying a computer, a pair of shoes or booking a trip, shopping online offers convenience and can make it easy to find some great deals. But at the same time shopping online can also put you at a high risk of becoming a target of these cyber criminals if proper precautions are not taken. Thus to keep your personal information safe, follow these steps to avoid online scams:

Use Common Sense

Make sure that the site you are surfing for, looks 100% right. It is better to take a little time and surf on various sites rather than ordering a product that never really comes. If you are surfing on a website that has poor spellings, logos or asking for too much of personal information then it’s better to be alert and pay a little attention to it.

Buy from reputed sites

Think carefully before buying from a new and unfamiliar website. There are so many websites that you are familiar with, so try to buy from these only as they have a reputation to maintain. Even if anything goes wrong, they will always be there to help you out and provide you with the best solution. It’s always better to spend a little extra on something you know rather than losing something completely.

Avoid clicking on suspicious emails

Phishing is an easy way used by hackers to target users

You get hundreds of emails in your inbox that offers a variety of discounts and offers for you. Most of these emails contain a couple of links in it. Though some of these emails offer real deals while others may be malicious. Links in malicious emails may be used to install unwanted software’s that can cause damage to your PC. These sites may look good and real but they have primarily been set up for collecting your personal information.

Never to use Public Wi-Fi when shopping online

When you type in personal information such as credit card details, bank account numbers etc across public Wi-fi, everyone using that particular network can access your information if they want to. You are always advised to use a secure network when shopping online. Wait for sometime before shopping if you can’t get a secure network.

Review & Ratings

It is very important to do a thorough research on the products and sellers before purchasing something online. Always read what people have to say about a particular thing. Look for reviews from multiple sources.

Sometimes as you are purchasing over the internet, there are internet monsters who are continuously spying on you and your online activities. Thus it’s very important that you act out carefully and not become a target of these hackers. Also install a quality Antivirus software.