by Sammy Stein

Created on: November 30, 2010

When you go into a shop, do you give the cashier - friendly though they may seem - your credit card details, your date of birth, age, gender, address and other details? The obvious answer is no and yet how many of us do this every time we buy something on line.

How long would it take you to have to know your local shop keeper before you gave them your address and telephone numbers along with your credit card details? Most of us wouldn't ,no matter how well we knew them and yet, when we purchase something online, we often have to do this before we can place our order, but do we know exactly who we are giving this information to? There are many fraudsters out there in online land where individuals are difficult to identify,who are eager to get details from you and me in order to use them fraudulently and online we are likely to give far more away, just because the answers are required to set up an account..

All this may seem worrying but there ar certain steps you can do to make sure you are not the victim of online fraud.

First, make sure that every time you pay online a padlick symbol comes up on the final apge. This indicates the site is secure and that it has protection against online watchers who wait until credit card details are entered on other sites and steal the information. Or at least the site is as up to date as it can be - online fraudster technologies are developing all the time.

Also, never, ever give your details away until you are absolutely sure of the site. For example, there have been several scams where fraudsters have set up very good copy sites of banks and then contacted people by email - it does not matter if they are customers of the bank or not and at this point the fraudsters do not know, they will hit someone who is soon enough -. The message in the email states there is a problem with the system which-handles their account and they need to verify the account number and password. - DO not fall for this and do not give your details out if they ask for your password. Legitimate sites will never need to ask you to confirm your password in an email.

Thirdly, use online secure sites for payment where your precise details are not known to the seller but through which you can gain secure third party transactions such as Paypal. This way, you can only spend what is in the account and the seller is not aware of your actual bank details. It can be the half way you need of not completely trusting someone but using a third party for a mutual point of contact. This has proved highly successful.

To guarantee one hundred percent that you can avoid becoming the victim of online fraud do not use the Internet for any transaction. Otherwise, follow the simply steps above to avoid online fraud as much as possible.

If you do become a victim, make sure you know the procedures with your bank. Also, do check your statements carefully as currentlya fraudsters are using debit card payments to siphon off small amounts which people rarely check on their statements. Added up, these accounted for 26000 pounds in one day and this is a growing fraud area so beware.

Overall, if you use secure sites, the internet is an easy place to do business with, Just bear in mind who you are giving details to and always, but always, undertake transactions with an eye on security.

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