Safety Tips for Online Credit Card Use

Credit cards are very useful for buying anything online. The transaction is fast and avoids hassles of cheques, mail, bounces and delayed product delivery. As these small plastic cards get more common, so rise the intentions of potential thieves to get hold of your credit cards details and misuse them.

Credit card transactions are very safe on the internet. But you need to take special precautions to ensure you don’t end up paying a huge amount and legal hassles for something you did not buy. So here are a few tips -

• Buy only from trusted companies you know. It better if you know their offline postal address, telephone numbers and other documents to verify their existence. If a similar product is available at similar prices from various sellers, choose the most trusted and largest one. You may want to read their privacy and secuity policies.
• Always give out your credit card details at secure websites. See the small closed lock symbol (in Internet explorer) or an unbroken key (in Netscape navigator) at the bottom of the browser bar.
• During any secure passage of encrypted data, you will see the http:// of the url in the address bar turn to https:// i.e. with addition of an ’s’, which signifies a secure protocol is being used.
  
• Look for signs of security like 128bit SSL encryption and safety / privacy confirmed by trusted service providers like Verisign or Trust.e.
• After the credit card transaction, usually the screen will reveal some transaction id, or order number, invoice number etc. with a message of successful money transfer by credit card. Print it and keep it safely. The seller usually sends an email after you successfully confirm the transaction. If you do not recieve it, you may ask them to send confirmation of your order.
• Always check your credit card transaction statements carefully to confirm that you indeed do those purchases
• Do not send your credit or debit card information via email or use it as proof of your identity.
• Never reveal your credit card details like number, CVC number, expiry date of your card to anyone in person, or over phone.
• Never reveal your ATM pin number as it is required to withdraw cash from ATM machines and not for online purchases.
• Keep a seperate low credit limit credit card for online purchases only. Gives you peace of mind.
• Some companies like Citibank offers Ecard, which is an online card only, no physical card at all. You can fix the credit limit depending on your needs to very low levels, so that even if it gets misused, you dont loose much.

Credit card transactions requires you provide the following details – Amount of purchase

Your sixteen digit credit card number

Your exact name as it appears on your credit card

Expiry date of your card

Type of card – Most commonly Mastercard or Visa

Your 3 digit card verification code – CVC (This is usually printed at the back of your card in continuation of your card number )

I hope these safety tips will ensure you shop with confidence with your credit card.