Security Articles

Safe Online Shopping Guide
by PayPal

PayPal has developed a series of simple and straightforward tips consumers can use to shop safely online.

These tips can be found in the "e-Commerce Safety Guide," a recently developed handbook authored by Chesnut, which provide tips for online shopping and avoiding fraud on the Web, available at www.paypal.com/security.

Learn as much as possible about both the product and seller: Online shoppers should get to know merchants through several sources: reputation systems, previous purchases, referrals through friends or reviews and comments from other shoppers. Learning as much as you can about a merchant is as important in the online world as it is in the offline world.

Understand each retailer's refund policy: Look for refund policies and buyer protection programs from either the web site or payment service used. In many cases, by using refund policies and PayPal, which offers a buyer protection program, you will be protected against fraud if something goes wrong. These simple guidelines will give shoppers peace of mind when shopping online.

Use a secure payment process: Choose a payment method that is reputable and never shares personal financial information with merchants, such as a major credit card or PayPal. Make purchases from that one account to avoid distributing financial information to multiple web sites.

If an offer sounds highly suspicious or too good to be true, it probably is: Just like in the offline world, be extremely cautious. Read the fine print and be wary of unreasonably low bargain prices or unusually attractive promises. Be cautious if merchants insist upon being paid in cash or through wiring money.