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How to shop safely online

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John Black

Nowadays, online shopping is totally safe. All we have to do is take a few precautions and choose the most appropriate payment method in each case.

SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE:

Check your device before buying. It is advisable to have an antivirus installed to rule out possible viruses capable of collecting personal and banking information from the device. In addition, the software installed on the device must be up to date.
Use a secure connection. Avoid shopping using public wifi networks, as they offer no guarantee of security.
Look for online shops whose address starts with HTTPS and display a padlock in the address bar. This ensures that the information being transmitted is encrypted.
Check the information provided by the online shop: who they are, where they are registered for tax purposes, what data they collect from users and for what purpose, what payment methods they allow, shipping and return policies.
Find out about the shop on search engines, social networks and forums. Checking what opinions other users have about it can provide a lot of information.
If you have doubts about the reliability of an online shop, it is better to discard the purchase and look for an alternative.
Story: "The day Berto almost made a mistake with his credit card".
Berto was happy because the good weather was approaching. He wanted to take a short trip with his family to enjoy the long weekend that was just around the corner.

He didn't know whether to choose the countryside or the beach, so he decided to look for options for both destinations and get the best price. After scouring all the travel websites, he decided on an offer he had received by email and whose price was less than half of what he had seen on other websites.

Just as he was about to enter his credit card numbers to book the trip, Eva appeared:

- Hi Dad! What are you doing?

- Just browsing a bit.

- What's with the credit card?

- I'm telling you but don't tell anyone. I received this email with an amazing offer to go on holiday this long weekend. All I have to do is send them the money with MoneyGram and they'll take care of everything.

- Dad, that sounds really weird. Put the card down and I'll explain a few things to keep in mind before making an online purchase...

Prepare your devices and connection before you shop
Before making any kind of online purchase, it is necessary to implement more technical security measures. There is little point in shopping in a shop that complies with all the security measures if the problem is in our equipment or the network where we are connected. Therefore, basic aspects to bear in mind:

It is necessary to install an antivirus tool. The antivirus protects the device from possible infections that may affect the device and therefore privacy and security. It is important to know that there are viruses that, for example, are capable of storing the sequence of keys that are pressed on the keyboard, so that if it is a PIN/password of an important service, such as an online shop, they can access in your name and collect all the information associated with that user account: name, surname, date of birth, postal address, credit card, etc.
Devices and their software must always be up to date. Both the operating system and the installed programmes and applications must be updated to the latest version to prevent possible vulnerabilities from affecting the privacy and security of the purchase process. Security flaws are often used by cybercriminals to sneak into users' devices through social engineering techniques.
Use of secure connection. When making a purchase, regardless of the online shop, it is important to do so from a trusted Internet network such as your home or mobile 3G/4G Internet connection. Under no circumstances is it recommended to make a purchase from a public wifi network as any user connected to it could spy on the communication with a tool and obtain our personal and bank details exchanged with the online shop if it does not use a secure protocol for the exchange of information (https).

https://www.fireinstyle.com/

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John Black
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