Online Shopping comes with its convenience, but also with a price. To stay safe while making online purchases, here are some safety practices you must put in place:
Avoid offers that are too good to be true
Everyone loves discounts. But some discounts can be so ridiculous. Imagine seeing an iPhone 12 Pro Max at the rate of 100,000 naira. That is more than 50% off. It is important to be cautious of mouthwatering offers on online shopping websites as many of them end up being scams.
Patronize Reputable Merchants
There are different merchants out there and you'll be putting yourself at risk by just using any merchant. Shopping with reputable merchants like Amazon and Jumia is reassuring and this is because they offer a safe and secure online shopping experience with a responsive customer care unit.
If you must patronize a merchant you don't know, you must take safe precautions. Do a thorough background check by checking out the reviews about the store on Google. If the store has no reviews, bad reviews, or only positive reviews, you should avoid them.
Always Shop On Secure Websites
Before you shop on an online website, always verify that the website is legitimate and secure. The first thing you should do when you visit a shopping website is to check the padlock icon around the link name. Always check to see if the website starts with "HTTPS://", and not "HTTP://". The 'S' tells you that the site is secure and encrypted to protect your information. Please do well to note this.
Use Strong and Unique Passwords
Before you can buy something from some online stores, you might need to create an account with them. In situations where you need to create an account, make sure you use a strong and unique password that random people wouldn't be able to guess by having random information about you.
Also, always avoid using the same password for every online store you use.
Avoid providing more information than necessary.
When using an online store, you are most times required to drop some necessary information which might include a method of payment, phone number, email address, and shipping address. Any online shopping website that requires you to provide more personal information like your bank account or BVN is a scam.
Avoid public WiFi
One of the ease of online shopping is that you can make your purchase from anywhere around the world. But it's best to do it with your personal network. Using public wifi could open you to threats as might be giving sensitive data away without recognizing it by being connected to a public WiFiUsing Public WiFi opens you up to cyber criminals who can steal valuable data such as passwords, credit card details and personal information. If you must shop online using public Wi-Fi, it is important to make use of a VPN(Virtual Private Network).
In conclusion, just like the way there is a chance of getting robbed while going out to shop physically, you can also get robbed of your data while shopping online. But you can choose to avoid making your data susceptible to cyber criminals by following the list of safe practices we've curated for you.