How to Report Online Payment Scam? 10 Things you can do to Avoid Online Payment Scam | Privacy Protection
Presently, the Internet has revolutionized the way we go shopping. The Internet has made it seamless as well as simpler to visit a retail store online sitting at home and navigating its products and then adding them to your cart for buying later. But with the increase in individuals moving towards online shopping, there are chances of Online Payment Scam. The security concern is one of the more significant challenge or issue of online shopping as far as concerned thousands of individuals around the world have reported online shopping scams. As of now, the Internet has become a powerful tool for shopping. Individuals know that they are at risk while they shop online, but they can’t stop buying. But still, we can take some of the measures online from getting scammed.
What is the Online Payment Scam?
Online payment scam is a kind of fraud that takes place whenever any unauthorized transaction takes place over the Internet through which scammers steal victim’s money and other personal information. The term online payment scam is a term which scares every business owner. Thus, there is nothing to be worried about, as this fraud is terrible. As this fraud takes money, credibility and trust of the customer completely broke down.
How does Online Payment Scam work? Most of the online sellers are legal but sadly, the scammer makes use of the unknown nature of the Internet to shred unsuspecting online shoppers. The online scammers make use of the advanced technology and craft a fake website of a retailer which looks like the real online store. Scammers utilized elegant layouts and designs, stolen logos and even taken domain name such that the site looks genuine. Most of the online scamming websites provide luxury products such as the popular clothing brands, clothing, jewellery, and electronics at low rates. Sometimes, you will surely receive the item for which you have paid, but the other time you will not receive anything. The best warning about a fake retail website is its mode of the payment. Scammers usually ask you to pay via money order, wire transfer, and if you transferred the money, it is sure that you will not receive the item that you have purchased. The newer way of online payment scams engrosses the utilization of several social media platforms to set up online fraud stores. The scammers open the retail store for a short period for selling branding clothing and other products online. After the store has created several online sales, it disappears. Also, they make use of the social media advertisement for the fake website. Thus, it is better for you not to trust the site as it is just advertised or available on social platforms. The best way to recognize the fake site or fake social media scam is to search their reviews on a search engine before making any online transaction. Click here learn ways to protect Social media scams.
How to recognize Online Payment Scam? Here are some warning signs which detect online payment scam: • The product is advertised on different platforms at a meager price or has been announced with the features that are much enticing and sound too good. • The retailers insist on doing transaction immediately, or you have to make payment by electronic funds or wire transfer. The retailers might force that you pay some upfront for the vouchers before you access cheap deal or give away. • The online store on social media is entirely new and selling the products at meager prices. The store contains restricted information about the shipping and several other policies. • The online retailer website does not offer sufficient details about terms, conditions, privacy, issues resolution, or their contact information. Might be the seller is based internationally or seller does not allow to make payment through secure payment like PayPal or another kind of safe online transaction.
10 Things you can do to Avoid Online Payment Scam Here are some tips to avoid online payment scam:
Online Payment Scam Tip #1: Check Refund and Return Policy
If you are making an online purchase through an online retail store or social media platform, then make sure to check its return or refund policy. If they are available, make sure that they sound fair. The real and genuine online shopping websites have elaborated issue resolution, and complaint processes present on their website if something is not right.
Online Payment Scam Tip #2: Check who you are dealing with
If you are making use of the retail websites for online shopping, then make sure to check out who you are dealing with. If the company is genuine, you can sort out the issues if any in a better way.
Online Payment Scam Tip #3: Use Secure Payment
If you are making payments online, make sure to pay using the secure mode of payment. Initially check the URL of the website if it is starting with https and have secured lock symbol or having a safe payment mode such as PayPal. It is crucial to think twice before making use of the virtual currencies like bit coin, as they did not offer the same protection as another online transaction method such that you can’t get the money once you sent.
Online Payment Scam Tip #4: Do not make any upfront payment
Make sure to ignore the arrange set up by the strangers who ask for any upfront payment through money order, wire transfer, electronic currency, international funds transfer, and others. Well, it is much rare to recover the money being sent in this manner. Do not send money or give your card details to anyone you never trust. Learn more about Credit Card Scams.
Online Payment Scam Tip #5: Check if the site is genuine
It is a fact that you don’t want to do the transactions on the website which are not reliable. Sites which has several hackers and scammers or sell fake products and deceive users. Every time you wanted to deal with the official websites. But how can you recognize that the site is reliable? To check if the website is reliable, review it. Before you purchase online from an online store, initially run a background check on it. Or saying it more realistically, Google it. Check if the other shoppers utilize it, but a better place to start is on the search engine. When you are doing the review, pay complete attention to answers to several questions: • Do your peers purchase from your website? • What is the experience of your peers? • Does the experience enjoyable or bad? It is great for you to focus on the questions above. All these questions will assist you in protecting from being scammed while you shop on the Internet.
Online Payment Scam Tip #6: Offer sounds good to be real
The unrealistic e-commerce website usually promotes that sounds too good to be real. Not only they give discounts, but the rates or their products are too low. The fake websites put some incredible sale, which sounds also lure to be true. For instance, if you are shopping for any laptop computer which is among the real range of $700 to $1000 but a fake retailer website boast it at the low price of about $150 which is an exciting offer but not accurate. So, it is better to steer clear of it. The individuals behind the website want to earn the money which you have made.
Online Payment Scam Tip #7: Check contact details on the website
It is imperative to check the contact details of the site you are going to shop. As a thumb rule, every business has contact details. Correctly, on the contact page, you will see the email, address and phone number. You might use this data to a to confirm whether that online retail store is real or not. Well, indeed, you don’t want to drive miles away to confirm the email address, but you can quickly look up to their phone number on their website which you can check on the contact page. If there is any match of the number with the real website, then it is possible that scammer has copied contact information from the real one, but if the information of name does not match, then you need to investigate more about the website instantly. Thus, in this way, you need to question from websites. Again make sure to check out the other warning signs of the scamming website — checkout out the red flags like misspell words or grammar.
Online Payment Scam Tip #8: Trust your Guts
Sometimes it happens that you are shopping online and you get some instincts that the website is not genuine. So, if you are getting abilities that the site is not as professional as sometimes, the things which seem good is not right. So, make some other opinion and walk away from what the website is offering.
Online Payment Scam Tip #9: Do Check Background
For shopping online safely, it is better to do the background checking of the website such that you can get saved from the scams happening online while doing the transaction. You can check the background of them, which can help you to avoid online payment scam.
Online Payment Scam Tip # 10: Use privacy protection software
If you do not want to become a victim of online payment scam happening online presently, then it is better to make use of privacy protection software which can help you to get save from digital theft. The best PC privacy protection software is XA Troop.
Bottom Line
I Hope this blog has helped you to identify and avoid online payment scam happening nowadays. So, it is better to follow all the tips and stay safe and secure while shopping online. Learn 10 Ways to protect your digital Identity online.