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Cyber Monday safe shopping tips

"Cyber Monday" is a new one to me, but allegedly today is the biggest online shopping day of the year. Yay, capitalism.

Get out there, type up some bargains, and have fun; but be sure to shop safe. It's a crazy world, and somewhere there's a 14-year-old Russian kid who needs one more identity theft to buy that Xbox 360. Good-looking tips for playing it safe online:

  • Online Shopping Tips [Privacy Rights Clearinghouse] - "We recommend you print out at least one copy of the web page(s) describing the item you ordered as well as the page showing company name, postal address, phone number, and legal terms, including return policy. Keep it for your own records for at least the period covered by the return/warranty policy."
  • Safeshopping.org [American Bar Association] - "Do you want to visit a site without revealing your identity? Visit www.anonymizer.com, then type the web address of the site into the 'Anonymizer' web browser. The free Anonymizer service includes a slight delay in accessing pages; for a fee, you can access these pages with no delay."
  • Shopping Online For The Holidays: Twelve Tips To Protect Yourself From Cyber Grinches, Scams And Schemes [Better Business Bureau] - "Be suspicious if someone contacts you unexpectedly and asks for your personal information. Identity thieves send out bogus emails about problems with consumers' accounts to lure them into providing their personal information. Legitimate companies don't operate that way."

As far as price comparisons and bargin-hunting, I've used Deal News, Price Grabber, and Dealazon, but I'm new to the (media-generated) world of Black Friday/Cyber Monday Mania. Got a favorite site with good deals to share? Any ninja shopping techniques you've mastered?

DanielFTL's picture

It is not always necessary...

It is not always necessary to shop only at the big sites for trust. Amazon has a customer service phone number, but you'll have to dig to find it and it will take days to get a response in e-mail. PayPal is the same way.

There are many small merchants out there worthy of your trust, but here are additional tell-tale signs of a worthy merchant.

Time in business is an indicator.

A site with a 3rd party secure certificate. These are expensive and merchants must pay for this and submit to verification from the 3rd party.

Read the page of the item you're considering ordering completely.

If you want to know something about an item you're considering, write the merchant and wait for a response. Sometimes the merchant may have the answer and respond immediately.

Word of mouth.

Finally, a little known fact is that you can pretty much dispute any credit card charge and win. Merchants pay for this of course and it drives prices higher, but if you're feeling screwed, you can dispute a charge.

In fairness to merchants, if you have an issue, give the merchant a chance to resolve the issue before you run to the credit card company with your complaint. You can win the battle, but end up losing the war because merchants pay for everything regarding credit card acceptance and processing.

 
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