Safety rules for online store users

In this blog, we often write articles for owners and developers of online stores. Today we decided to move away from the tradition and look at the problems of the sphere from the consumer. Below are some basic tips for buyers on how to use the services of online stores in the most secure way. And for the owners and creators of online stores, let it be another reminder of what customers are paying attention to and what may prevent them from gaining their trust.

1. Think three times, before letting anyone use your device. If you have an electronic wallet installed on your smartphone, just do not give it to strangers. With acquaintances too neatly, especially with guests at home. For them, you can simply install a separate browser, especially if you do not leave your accounts in the service.
2. Be careful when connecting to a public wi-fi, and certainly you should not open to the public access to your home network. Even in the process of regular Internet surfing in a cafe, it would be easy for an attacker to gain access to your mail and other accounts.
3. This is commonplace, but, based on experience, even technically advanced people need to be reminded of it - do not follow strange provocative links on social networks. If a friend has sent you a link to a private video with your participation, do not be lazy to first contact this person through other channels and clarify what the link is. Often there is a virus that will pull information from your computer. And sooner or later he will get to your passwords and bank cards.
4. Separate passwords. Everyone is too lazy to come up with a separate password for each service, so we use the same one. No matter how difficult it is, you must remember that there are still plenty of ways for intruders to get it (sometimes with your unwitting help). Therefore, choose a convenient password manager program for yourself and use it. Thus, you will need to remember only one (but long and complex :) password.
5. Google If you want to use the services of an online store for the first time, be sure to search for its offline address, phone numbers, reviews about it on social networks or on websites that allow you to determine that a review is left not by a bot, but by a living person. Effectively look for reviews in social networks by tags and references to the brand name - there you can definitely make sure that the comment is left by a living person, and if necessary, and communicate with the author.
6. Read the links. This is especially true for sites from email newsletters and those that you went to by clicking on the banner. Often, this is how you can get to the scam site, it happens that they copy the well-known online stores and outwardly almost impossible to distinguish. In this case, you need to look at the address of the site. In addition, for new stores, the address of the site should be in the sense of any correlation with the products being sold.
7. Check if the site is encrypting the data, the easiest way is to look at the link in the address bar. If it starts with shttp or https, then the store uses SSL encryption, if it’s just http, you shouldn’t share private information with this site.
8. Share with the store only the necessary information. Often order forms are full of paradoxical questions that they ask to collect data about customers, the answers to them are not necessary for making a purchase. Try to fill in only the fields, usually marked with an asterisk - those in which only mandatory information. It is not necessary to share the mother’s surname or credit card number with the store.
9. Save all possible transaction information. Make sure that you have proof of each purchase - the transaction or bank transfer number, a screenshot with payment confirmation, the order identification number and the contact information of the seller or store. The more documents you have (even electronic), the more protected you are from losing money.
10. Item about eggs and baskets. If you make online purchases, it is worth having a special card for this, and not to use a single bank account with all the savings. Many banks offer virtual cards, especially for payments on the Internet. Such cards can hold small reasonable amounts for online payments, and even if the data is stolen, the losses will not be catastrophic.
11. Carefully associate your social media profiles with accounts in stores. Even an indirect link between your Facebook profile and billing information can be used against you. Therefore, three times ask yourself how much you trust the service with which you want to link your account.