Hawking in a winter wonderland

On this 2nd day of Consumer Protection, it’s all about online shopping. Because that’s what we can do this year, right? (OK, it’s a lot of what we do any year.)

If you’re spending some of your hard-earned money online, make sure you know where it’s going. Because it’s pretty easy for scammers to put up a fake website that looks a lot like a real one. A scam website may show up in your search results, or scammers may send you a phishing email that looks like it came from a company you trust, but actually takes you to a rip-off site. They’ll be happy to take your money and leave you with nothing. So:

Instead of clicking on a link, say in an email, type in the store’s URL yourself, so you know where you’re headed.

Only pay on sites with URLs that starts with https. That ‘s’ means your transaction is encrypted…but scammers know how to encrypt, too. So don’t believe that a site is the real deal just because the site uses encryption.

Pay by credit card. It gives you way more protections if something goes wrong.

Check out more about how to shop safely online.

And if you spot a scammy site or you don’t get what you ordered, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Federal Trade Commission. Published by the Federal Trade Commission and, as a work of the United States government, in the public domain; material credited to others is left out.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.