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As popular a shopping tool as the Web has become, we
still have a sizable portion of the population who will
not do business on-line for fear of "Internet" fraud.
This "webphobia" strikes me as a bit odd and certainly
misplaced. It is very likely that the same person who
won't place a credit card order online will gladly hand
a card to someone earning less than minimum wage in
a restaurant. They will call a catalog on a cordless
phone and give the card number to an unknown person
on the other end. Both of these types of behavior are
far more risky than shopping online. At the restaurant,
the card can be easily copied and used within minutes.
The cordless phone call could be monitored with an inexpensive
scanner.
When you shop on the Web, you almost always send the
credit card information through a secure connection
encoded in a way that would take a supercomputer months
or even years to break. Crooks don't have to go to all
that expense and trouble to get your credit card information.
It's far easier to hire some kids to grab your mail
(your account numbers are on the bills).
Trumping all of that system safety is the fact that
Federal law limits your liability to $50 in fraudulent
charges. Plus, to make you feel even better, many companies
are offering total protection against online fraud.
Shopping on-line is at least as safe as shopping anywhere
else, probably even safer. The only thing you have to
make sure is, if the company you deal with uses all
available by the technology means to process credit
card transactions.
So, get over this unreasonable fear and avoid the malls.
You might save money, your sanity, and long lines at
the Post Office.
For more information about our security policy click
here.
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