Shopping online safely?

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Just this morning I received a funky phone call from “San Diego” telling me about several transactions on my “credit card” and that I needed to call t
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Myst, Ascaris

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I’ve learned not to shop at too many places online. I also don’t save my information but instead check out as a guest if I can. Any place can get hacked so the smaller the footprint online the better off you are. I like that my credit card company is very quick to verify charges. I also more frequently review my credit card account to make sure no unauthorized charges have been made.

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MrJimPhelps, Myst

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I do the same thing with my online shopping. Checking out as a guest is the best way to go in my opinion. I also signed up for email alerts on my credit card account so I very quickly see every charge over a certain dollar amount (which the bank lets me set).

When using my credit card shopping around town, I never let it out of my sight. That pretty much precludes using it in restaurants. I have a friend who used his once at a restaurant and within an hour there were fraudulent charges appearing. The restaurant claimed they couldn’t tell who did it because the waiter had to bring it to a cashier and it could have been either of them.

I never use my debit card online or in stores or restaurants. The only place I ever use it is at bank ATMs, usually the ones at branches of my own bank, but sometimes when out of town at other banks if they are members of the same interbank network.

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Out of interest, are you in the US? So far as I’m aware here in the UK restaurants and shops etc are no longer allowed to take payment cards away from the customer, they have to bring a hand-held card reader to the customer. It’s certainly years since I was last required to hand over my card. I’m surprised if other countries haven’t adopted the same standard.

As for ATMs, I won’t use them in the street as they are too easily compromised, I only use ones inside a bank, or at least inside a shopping mall that is closed overnight, preferably but not necessarily a branch of my own bank. In the UK we only have a handful of national banks of course, we don’t have local banks like in the US.

Prior to Covid (when here in the UK most places stopped handling cash) I avoided using contactless cards as they are less secure and prevent you keeping a close watch on your spending. I much prefer to draw out a certain amount of cash each week and know what I’m spending. I always use cash in petrol stations as there have been a lot of incidents of card fraud in those in the UK. For online shopping I only use a credit card as that is guaranteed by the bank. I don’t touch online/phone banking or any kind of online financial management in relation to pensions and investments etc.

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I’m in the US. Many restaurants still take the card away to process the check. Some do it the way you describe, but definitely not all. Maybe some States have a standard like you describe in the UK, but there is no nationwide standard concerning it in the US.

As for ATMs, I won’t use one that’s on or too near the street either. If a passerby can get too close before I can stop what I am doing, I won’t use that ATM. Many branch banks where I am have drive-thru ATMs and I use those regularly.

Like you, I also draw out adequate cash and use it for many purchases, including at restaurants and gas (petrol) stations. There is also a good deal of card fraud at fuel pumps here in the US and I would never dream of using a card at one.

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Douglas wrote:

Like you, I also draw out adequate cash and use it for many purchases, including at restaurants and gas (petrol) stations. There is also a good deal of card fraud at fuel pumps here in the US and I would never dream of using a card at one.

You’re not liable for fraud using credit cards. A debit card is more of a risk, as Susan mentioned, but if your credit card gets a fraudulent charge, just call the credit card company and dispute the charge as fraudulent. It’s the credit card company’s money that goes to the fraudsters, not yours, and you’re not obligated to pay the bill for it.

It’s why I use credit card for all purchases even though I don’t run a balance month to month (unexpected emergencies excepted). If you pay the charges off by the end of the billing period, you get the benefit of the “float,” meaning no interest is charged. When you add in the bonus things that credit cards give as incentives, like cash-backs or extra warranty protection for purchased items, it’s win-win, as long as you are diligent about not spending more than you can pay off each month. Credit card companies are ‘banking’ (pun intended) on the idea that incentives will cause customers to spend more and not pay the balance off each month, which of course is where they make their money, in the form of interest.

Most credit cards now have the little embedded chips (with contacts; RFID chips that are contactless are another thing), which are much harder for thieves to ‘skim’ than the magnetic strips. The chip is left inserted until the transaction is complete, and even if the skimmer device has contacts that momentarily intercept the chip contacts as it passes through, it doesn’t do them any good.

If the gas station or other place with a POS device does not use the chip readers, they may be accepting liability for any fraud that is performed using their equipment, as an incentive to get them to upgrade their POS devices (otherwise, why would they? It costs money and doesn’t bring in any extra revenue).

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Ascaris, I understand what you are saying about the ability to dispute fraudulent charges and get them off your credit card bill. Not sure you are correct that it is just “the credit card company’s money that goes to the fraudsters, not yours”. The credit card company is my bank and if they take the amount off my bill it does not just go into a void. Somebody still pays, and it could be me and other bank customers paying for it in a variety of ways. And if they won’t take it off your bill, just wait and see what happens when you refuse to pay.

In the case of the friend I mentioned, he was on a trip when someone at that restaurant stole his info. That person most likely sold the info to someone else who immediately started ordering high-dollar things with it, because none of it traced back to employees of that restaurant as far as my friend ever found out. But his card was maxed out by the time he found out what was going on. He couldn’t use it for anything, which caused problems on his trip. It was days before he got it all straightened out and by then the trip was over. I don’t care to go through that kind of hassle and so I use my card sparingly. Cash is just fine for me for most things and at most times.

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Douglas wrote:

Not sure you are correct that it is just “the credit card company’s money that goes to the fraudsters, not yours”. The credit card company is my bank and if they take the amount off my bill it does not just go into a void. Somebody still pays, and it could be me and other bank customers paying for it in a variety of ways.

Yes, but that’s a down-the-road thing. What I meant is that if you use a debit card and someone makes fraudulent charges, that comes right out of your account. It was your money that was taken.

If it is your credit card that was the target of the fraudulent charges, nothing comes out of your account. The bad guys got money, but you’re not any poorer. It wasn’t your money that was taken… it was the bank’s. What happens down the road is another question, but it’s the bank that will be looking to recapture its funds to recoup the loss, not you.

The costs of fraud that can’t be reversed in the manner that Paul T mentioned are borne by the bank clients who pay interest or fees. Like any business, they have sources of revenue and costs that must be paid. The interest and fees are their source of revenue, and fraud is one of the costs, along with the salaries of employees and the cost of maintaining the bank branches themselves.

The chips on the cards are one way that the bank is attempting to mitigate the fraud burden, but fraudsters always come up with new ways of doing what they do.

If your card was compromised by the fraudsters, and the fraudsters got away with the money, the cost of that does not fall any more heavily on you than it does on any other customer of that bank. With credit cards, if you make late payments, go over the credit limit, or carry a balance from month to month, those all generate fees or interest that pay for the fraud… but you can avoid all of those with your own actions, independently of whether it was your card or someone else’s that was compromised by thieves. The same goes for cards that have annual fees… you can avoid those and only go for the ones without the fee.

And if they won’t take it off your bill, just wait and see what happens when you refuse to pay.

Then they are behaving in a way similar to the criminals who took the money in the first place. Having a bank play “dirty pool” and try to make you pay for things you should not have to pay for can happen (and not just at banks), but again, that’s a separate problem.

If you pay for things in cash, there’s no recourse short of suing someone who acts in bad faith. You can dispute charges that were not the result of unauthorized people using your credit line too… if you paid for a good or service that turned out not to be on the up-and-up, you can dispute that and have the bank look into it. If they agree, they will reverse the charge and the person or company that tried to pull one over on you doesn’t get paid.

If you paid cash, it’s gone the moment you hand it over.

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Assuming that many Black Friday “bargains” are far from being that is not a bad starting point. For one thing, I’ve noticed from comparing prices with reviews that the poorer the quality, the higher the discount – yet it seems that everyone is seduced by the size of the discount!

That aside, I agree with “anonymous” above, comment #2315499.

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? says:

i’ve done a little online buying over the years and haven’t had problems (knock on wood). my daughter did an online purchase from the company that sponsors the Thanksgiving parade in NYC the other day and was double charged by one of their “third party,” billing associates. her bank showed the transaction going through while the other end said declined. when she called the third party to get straightened out she noticed a duplicate transaction happening while she was on the line and asked the rep if he had just double charged her (he in fact had). needless to say after working on the problem for an hour and a half she decided to do business elsewhere…

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Startmail.com has unlimited aliases that I can create with any email address I choose or an aliase that Startmail can automatically generate.  The aliases can be set to expire on a time table or keep.  I use a different aliase for each vendor.  They have a black Friday offer of the first year for $29.72.  If you read up on Startmail they are very secure.  Paying for peace of mind makes sense to me.  I keep this Startmail account only for on-line ordering so that I have a wall created from regular emails, banking, etc.

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I get TONS of scam calls. I’m one of those dinosaurs who still uses a landline at home, and when I got the number ~10 years ago, I started getting a lot of calls from collection agencies leaving messages for two people (with the same last name, probably a married couple) I don’t know. Over time the calls changed to seedier and seedier collection agencies, as the bad debts would be sold off to an even more bottom-feeding company. I got all kinds of illegal threats about how the police were going to be called to arrest me if I didn’t pay the bills for these people I never met, which I obviously found unconvincing.

I never answered any of them, but instead blocked them with my telephone company’s call blocking service. Unfortunately, it has a laughably tiny limit of 25 people. I was given a cordless phone as a gift that has a call blocking function, and I’ve used that to block the rest. It has 157 numbers on it at present, in addition to the 25, so I am approaching 200 numbers. Twenty-five? Ha.

The weird thing is that I started getting the same calls on my cell phone (“dumb” phone), which is only connected to my landline through my name, which is not the name of any of the people they’re trying to collect from. Do they think my real name is actually an alias of the deadbeats?

I don’t know how long my number was dormant before it was put back into service for my line. Presumably, the bill collectors called the number and got the “this number is disconnected,” and then “this number is no longer in service,” at which point they should have removed it from their call list. At that point, the number has been returned to the “unused” pool, and it should be evident that the next person to have that number won’t be the previous one, but a completely different, random person. But as soon as the number was back in service, they called, and called, and called…

Eventually, the collection calls tapered down to near zero, and then I started getting actual, no question about it scam calls.

I think what happened is that the bottom-feedingest bill collectors (essentially scammers themselves) sold my number to other scammers, and so I’ve gotten the “this is Microsoft” calls, the “your social security number has been used fraudulently” calls (with a really bad robot voice) supposedly from local phone numbers, same prefix as mine, and with the name of an individual, not a company.

I realize the point of spoofing a local number is to make me think it’s a personal call and not a scam/bill collector/telemarketer, but if you’re trying to claim my social security number has been compromised, you’ll have to do better than pretending to be some random homeowner from my neighborhood.

When you get as many calls as I have had, the idea that I would fall for any of them is ridiculous. Back in the day, I used to get three or four messages from princes in Africa who wanted the help of me, random stranger, to smuggle money out of the country (advance fee “419” scams). There were so many that they were self-defeating, even if I was inclined to believe them. One call alone may work with some unsuspecting people, but when you get a ton of them, it’s obvious they cannot all be true, so I would hope people would realize that since many of them must be false, there’s no reason to think that any of them are legit.

Most likely these numbers that sometimes appear in my caller ID are other people who have their numbers in the bad guys’ database, being used to make me not suspect a scam so that I answer the phone. If I were to call them back, they’d almost certainly be some random stranger who has nothing to do with the scam. For all I know, my own name and number may have been used to try to scam someone else.

 

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Of course the number that you see as calling you is easily spoofed. I wish we would have some serious consequences and enforcement here in the USA. Is it bad in the EU and UK too?

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More than a year ago, I had enough with robocalls and scam calls that were ringing my landline phone off the hook every hour of every blessed day and started to do this: if I am not expecting a call or have to make a call myself, to keep this phone disconnected and check, now and then, my voice mail to see who has called.

Usually I get calls from numbers with my local first three digits, or else with very long series of numerals, probably overseas calls. They will ring ten times, get my voice message to leave me a message and a phone number to call back.  A that point the call often ends without message. Same thing with my cellphone. Other times I hear some legitimate messages, so I call back, and some dubious ones that I ignore and delete.

Recently a robocall law was approved in the USA, but I have not heard more about it. Probably because the news services have been so busy covering the elections here.

It is very hard to get rid of callers that dial one’s number that previously belonged to someone else and are determined to have a word with that person. Call blocking is a good idea in such cases. Do all big telecoms offer call blocking?

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If scammers call asking for a particular person, tell them that person has died. Puts them off right from the outset. And turn your ringer off, no point in unwanted noise.

cheers, Paul

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Ascaris wrote:

It’s the credit card company’s money that goes to the fraudsters, not yours

Not quite. The CC company simply reverses the transaction and the retailer is out of pocket. CC companies /banks never lose.

cheers, Paul

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Plus there is plenty of scope for banks to argue over their liability, certainly in the UK there have been plenty of well-publicised cases where a bank has argued that the card must have been used by a family member or someone who was allowed to use it through either consent or negligence on the part of the account holder. That can cause a lot of distress and time to resolve, and while the account holder may ultimately win the case in the meantime the money has gone from the account. The law and regulations are gradually being tightened in favour of the customer but it’s taking time.

There’s also a lot of evidence of e.g. gamers falling foul of developers whose standard practice is to close permanently an account into which the gamer has invested a lot of time and money the moment a chargeback is requested because it’s an expensive procedure for them as they are charged a fee by the banks for processing chargebacks. The first rule for safe and trouble-free online transactions in these cases is to raise any double-charging or other form of disputed payments with the company first rather than going straight to the bank for a chargeback.

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It’s the credit card company’s money that is spent any time you use your credit card, just like any other loan. If there is fraud, the bank will seek to get their money back, but that’s the point… it’s their money that went to the fraudster. What they do to recover it afterward is not my concern, as long as it is not me they come after. It’s their loss and their problem.

By contrast, if a debit card is used fraudulently, it is the debit card holder who is out the money until there is a final resolution. Even if the stolen amount is eventually added back to the account holder’s account, he’s out that money until then.

 

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Ascaris: “It’s the credit card company’s money that is spent any time you use your credit card, just like any other loan. If there is fraud, the bank will seek to get their money back, but that’s the point… it’s their money that went to the fraudster. ”

True enough, and that is why, when buying something, I always make substantial payments, if at all possible, using a credit card, and never a debit one, or my checking or savings account. Or paying a large expense with cash.

However, there is a difficulty with getting one’s expenses canceled from one’s card account: first one must make a good faith effort to come to an agreement with the merchant whose charges one is questioning. Then, if there is no satisfactory agreement, one has to write and send a complaint letter, within usually something like sixty days, to the address provided by the credit card company for sending such complaints, explaining what happened, why one is dissatisfied with the purchase and does not want to pay for it, and what good faith efforts one has made unsuccessfully to come to an agreement with the merchant before sending the letter.

The problem is that merchants, big ones in particular, tend to be really good at giving their dissatisfied customers the round around without ever providing them a way to actually get do their good faith effort. Fraudsters, of course, might do that too, or may just ignore one’s requests.

I understand that in such cases some card companies will go ahead and deal with the obnoxious merchant or fraudster in question anyway and, whether successful in getting to meet and talk things over, or not, cancel the charge if one’s claim is seen as justified. Do all card companies do this?

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[Mele20]

Seff wrote:

I avoided using contactless cards as they are less secure and prevent you keeping a close watch on your spending

Why are contact-less cards less secure? I don’t use them but not for the reason you give. I use ApplePay on my Apple watch.

I don’t carry my credit cards anymore. I almost always use one that is set up for ApplePay on my Apple watch. I haven’t eaten out in many years but I don’t carry more that a few dollars in cash so if a restaurant cannot handle using Applepay on my watch I would not patronize such a place. As for using a card to buy gas, I patronize the ONE full service gas station in this town. I hand them my card. I trust this place and it is well worth the 20 cents approximately per gallon more for the personalized service that used to be the standard at all stations in the USA. This is the one place where i still need to carry a credit card with me.

Since Covid 19, I have avoided getting cash from my bank’s automatic teller machine which is not drive up …I don’t want the germs from all the people using it and waiting to use it). I just use credit cards on my iWatch and pay them in full each month. The Apple Watch is the best purchase I have made in years. It is far more useful than my iPhone…it fits on my wrist and it does just about everything my iphone does and it is a zillion times easier to disinfect when I get home. I’m crazy about it!

One HUGE gripe though. On an island that is still under served by retailers, I have to shop in WalMart and WalMart hates anything Apple so I actually have to use my iPhone rather than the iWatch to purchase there as I need Wal-Mart Pay in their app on the iPhone unless I want to drag my credit card out and put it in their machine.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mele20.

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Mele20 wrote:

Since Covid 19, I have avoided getting cash from my bank’s automatic teller machine which is not drive up …I don’t want the germs from all the people using it

Germs are everywhere you can’t avoid them. Just wash your hands frequently or use a hand sanitizer.

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[geekdom]

Online shopping is limited to long-term, established sites and approximately three sites.

Offline shopping is limited to cash.

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OscarCP wrote:

Do all big telecoms offer call blocking?

It is a digital service so maybe not on copper.

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OscarCP

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The phone networks are all digital up to the point they run down your copper wires to your phone. Even then they overlay digital for your broadband.

cheers, Paul

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Paul T wrote:

The phone networks are all digital up to the point they run down your copper wires to your phone. Even then they overlay digital for your broadband.

cheers, Paul

I can just say I have never seen this advertised for plain old copper.
It would be nice if they did this internally, but then again there might be false positives.
I may be finding out for myself how good spam blocking is as Verizon is intent on ripping out their copper in my area. I had a service call scheduled for today that mysteriously ‘disappeared’.

Back on subject, I used to (but not now) have one card I used for just online shopping and only that card for online shopping. That way if it got compromised I could exclude local vendors as culprits.
All in all I believe you are much more likely to have big retailers and card transactors lose your data to hackers. It certainly helps to request your card info not be saved.

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wavy wrote:

All in all I believe you are much more likely to have big retailers and card transactors lose your data to hackers. It certainly helps to request your card info not be saved.

Some online retailers save payment information, without the option not to, and do so without the protection of 2FA.  That, to me, is unacceptable.

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doriel

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In those cases, I just go into my profile on those online retailers and delete any payment- or billing-related information.

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Sueska

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SueW – there are some that will not allow you to do that.

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SueW

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My sister is using virtual credit card, which generates new card number with every transaction. The card number is never the same. Thats the best way how to remain safe while shopping on the internet.
Check, whenever you bank offers this type of card.

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wavy

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That is a very good idea! I did that years ago, don’t remember how I stopped 😐
I was going to use that method to pay recurring bills (cable, electric …) and get the 3% cash back my CC offered. I should look into that again!

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Doriel: “My sister is using virtual credit card, which generates new card number with every transaction. The card number is never the same.”

How does this work on the merchant’s side? I might be missing something here, because I believe that the merchant would only charge the card with the number one has entered, as required, in one’s profile when setting up the account for online shopping. One can only change that number by editing the profile oneself. So it is unclear to me that is possible to use a different card number one has not entered previously by hand there.

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Fred

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If you haven’t saved the card details you need to enter them every time. If it saves the card details regardless, delete the card after use.

cheers, Paul

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OscarCP

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Thanks fot the question.
I cant see too deep into, because banks do not share technical information. But I belive that merchandiser recieves payment from account itself, not from the virtual credit card. You cant pay with this card physically, its just for shopping online. Card number is always valid just for one transaction.

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OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

How does this work on the merchant’s side? I might be missing something here, because I believe that the merchant would only charge the card with the number one has entered, as required, in one’s profile when setting up the account for online shopping.

Apple Card generates Virtual card numbers…

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/28/how-apple-card-works/

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OscarCP

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The way I used virtual cards is I had one for each merchant and just put $$ into them in the amount I needed for the transaction. THe # would be reused each time i did business with that merchant. Not quite what was being talked about but worth looking into if it is still a possibility.

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Wavy: “Not quite what was being talked about but worth looking into if it is still a possibility. ” This is also more in line with what I have been talking about: cards that take different numbers in different transactions are OK for paying for things or services at a shop or a dentist’s office, for example, but not for setting up accounts with online services and merchants that require the same card number be charged every time, for example Netflix or Amazon.

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On a kinda related note:  https://www.fbi.gov/news/podcasts/inside-the-fbi-holiday-scams-120120 A FBI podcast on holiday scams.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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[doriel]

Thanks, its good that FBI is educating public.

Wise advices indeed.

The best way to protect yourself online is to never click on anything unfamiliar or that you weren’t expecting. So, if a company you’ve never heard of and never done business with emails you a link or an attachment, don’t click directly on it. If you know that company’s URL, type it in manually to visit their site.

Be especially wary if a company asks you to update your password or account information. Look up the company’s phone number on your own and call the company.

I would say – reliable company will NEVER ask you for password or other sensitive data via email.

And I do not understand, why I should not pay with gift cards? Gift cards are perfect gifts. Everyone can pick what he wants. I love them 🙂

Also avoid paying for items with pre-paid gift cards—in these scams, a seller will ask you to send them a gift card number and PIN.

If someone empties my gift card, at least my credit card is safe. Or??

Grover: First off, never wire money to a seller. Also avoid paying for items with pre-paid gift cards—in these scams, a seller will ask you to send them a gift card number and PIN. Instead of using that gift card for your payment, the scammer will steal the funds, and you’ll never receive your item. And in these cases, it’s virtually impossible to get back any of your money, too.

Use a credit card when shopping online and check your statement regularly. If you see a suspicious transaction, contact your credit card company to dispute the charge.

And always get a tracking number for items you buy online, so you can make sure they have been shipped, and you can follow the delivery process.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by doriel.

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