It has become increasingly common to shop online instead of shopping in physical stores, especially during the past year online shopping has become a real lifesaver for many. Online shopping is easy and comes with the added bonus of not having to elbow people and instead you can take your time and think over your purchase. The supply of online stores has exploded of the past few years and so has, unfortunately also online scams. That is why it is very important that you do your research before you go through with a purchase from an unknown online shop. Down below we will go through the most common forms of online scams, as well as share our tips on how to shop securely online.
The first and most important step to shopping online is to verify the authenticity of the website. Is this your first time coming across this company? Do your research! Google the company, read reviews about other people’s experience with purchasing from this company. You can also look up the company on social media, that way you can quickly get an indication of the validity of the company. What if it’s a company that you’re familiar with? Then double check that you have the web address right, this can be done by doublechecking the spelling or googling the company; the company’s website will usually appear as one of the top results.
Even though we at PriceRunner can’t always guarantee that all our listed shops actually are authentic, we are always actively working on removing shops that we know are not. Since our users can also review shops, you can use these reviews to get a better picture of the authenticity of the shop.
Most of us have at some point in time received scam messages, and unfortunately these are becoming more and more common. They’re often sent through email, but can also be sent through text or could even be a phone call. The content of these messages are often about your personal information or login or account details, which the scammer then will use to scam you. That’s why it’s so important to be extra careful with what you click on, and to NOT give out any personal or sensitive information such as bank account details or login details.
That feeling of finding the thing you really want at a great price is unbeatable! Sometimes it can almost seem too good to be true, then as a rule it usually is. When you find an online shop that offers a product at an unreasonably low price, the purpose might be to get your personal information, instead of actually selling something. If you’re uncertain of whether or not something is really just a good deal or a scam, make sure to research the company before you complete your purchase.
Another type of price scam is when a product seems to be on a massive sale, when in actuality the shop has been raising the price over a period of time and then put it down again, all to make it seem like there is now a massive discount on the item. For us online shoppers, this then appears to be a great deal and we are more compelled to buy the product. This type of price scam is very common around Black Friday when we’re looking for the biggest discount. We at PriceRunner have therefore but a price history function on all our product where you can see how the pricing of the item has changed over time, this way you can be sure that you’re actually getting a good deal. Read more about price history.
When you enter your card details online it’s very important to make sure that the information you send is encrypted. This often means that your card details won’t be fully written out and therefore cannot be collected and recorded by anyone. So how do you know if it’s encrypted? Webb addresses that use encryption always start with ”https”. Moreover almost all secure websites will use a padlock icon that will appear by the web address. By clicking on this icon you can read more about the certificate. So if the symbol isn’t there you cannot for sure know is you can trust this website.