Credit card fraud appears to be all over the place and criminals love using the internet to steal credit card data due to the privacy it provides. Many consumers think the only option to be secure is to avoid shopping online all together. While that's one way to avoid one's credit card details from getting stolen, it also means it is impossible to shop online again. The online marketplace for products and services is growing at a a rapid pace because consumers are aware of the ease with which they can discover the most affordable deals while shopping online. If you don't shop online anymore, one would give up all these amazing deals. Using this method to avoid fraud with credit cards is similar to making the decision to never fly on a plane again to avoid terrorists. Sure, you won't be a victim of any terrorist attack which involved planes. However, that also means having to endure the hassle of not being able fly while traveling. As with all things on the planet, key is not to avoid the problem, but to understand the problem and to adopt an effective strategy to reduce the chance of becoming a victim of fraudulent credit card transactions when you shop on the internet.
Let's first discuss the steps to take if the credit card fraud occurred. There's no reason to panic. Once the cardholder reports that his or her credit card information has been compromised The credit card company won't be held accountable for any fraudulent charges even if the charges were made prior to declaring that the credit card has been stolen. A credit card provider will close the card off from further use and issue a new card within one or two weeks however this is an inconvenience most people would prefer not to go through, if possible.
Online shoppers can use Google's safe Browsing Tool to check if the website is safe to browse in the event that one is able to trust Google of course. This tool will inform you whether a site is suspicious or not, at the time that Google last checked it, if the website was involved in any suspicious activity in the past, and will also inform if it is associated with any suspicious websites even in the event that the site itself is not doing anything that could be considered suspicious. To see if a website is safe, simply copy and paste "http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=" into the address field on the browser, and then add the url of the site to be visited. For example, to a company's website, just enter "http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=websiteurlhere.com" into the address bar of the browser being used. After entering this address the tool from Google will show up a simple half page report on whether the website in question is in fact safe or not.
Another level of protection that one can use when purchasing online is to use reputable third party payment methods. Nearly everyone has been familiar with PayPal. They are perhaps the most widely used 3rd party payment method around the world. They permit customers to pay for products and services through them. For example, this means that when a consumer purchases something the item, she isn't directly transferring money to the website she is shopping on. She is paying the amount due to PayPal, and then PayPal reimburses the merchant, meaning that the merchant does not have access to her credit card number and the credit card information was not transmitted over the internet during this transaction. It does not matter if the customer shops at one website or a hundred websites. As long, as a 3rd party payment method was utilized credit card data was not transferred, meaning that the data isn't floating across the internet on every website where a purchase is made. Other third-party payment options like PayPal are Google Wallet and Amazon Payments.
Armed with this information, online shoppers can Amazon gutschein now be sure that the websites they go to are secure to shop on, and also be sure to not enter sensitive information when purchasing. There is no reason to ignore all the amazing deals available when shopping online, if you are worried about your credit card details being stolen.