How to Keep Your Credit Card Safe Over Christmas Online shopping makes Christmas more convenient for both consumers and criminals. The number of people choosing to forgo the crush of the high street is increasing yearly but so, unfortunately, is the incidence of online Christmas crime.
More than 32 million Brits shopped online over the past year - an impressive increase of 39 percent over five years. According to the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), Christmas shoppers will spend 16 percent more online this year than they did the year previous.
Christmas Card
Most of these online purchases will involve the use of credit or debit card, leading the UK Cards Association to issue a Shop Safe Checklist to help shoppers protect themselves and their cards while shopping online.
Safe shopping tips can be picked up during any credit card comparison
The checklist forms part of the wider Be Card Smart Online campaign. It encourages consumers to ensure that their personal computers have the latest anti-virus software, operating systems and browsers.
Shoppers should only trust sites that display the padlock symbol and should ensure that they have properly logged out of any sites once their purchase is completed.
Preference should be given to sites that have a good reputation.
Purchases should never be made from sites that have been arrived at through a link. Consumers should exercise caution when making purchases from overseas.
In all purchases shoppers should make a record of the retailer's postal address (not a post office box), phone number (not a mobile number), delivery conditions, terms and conditions and returns policy.
These details can prove useful if a purchase goes awry at any point.
Purchases of between £100 and £30,000 are best made using a credit card. Doing so will ensure that they are protected under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.
Should anything go wrong with the purchase, credit card consumers - even those with 0% purchase credit cards - can expect to be refunded their money.
Head of Fraud Control for The UK Cards Association, Katy Worobec urges anyone intending to make Christmas purchases online to make use of the association's advice.
It seems people are heeding fraud warnings, if the latest figures regarding the number of cards registered with online passwords for Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode are anything to go by.
These have increased in the space of a year by 32 percent to 70 million users even becoming popular among holders of bad credit rating credit cards.
However, in most other areas of card safety consumers seem happy to ignore advice. Research from Datamonitor, an independent market analyst, reports that consumers care more about convenience than potential fraud, despite one in ten already having fallen victim to it.
The reason behind this is that shoppers believe banks shoulder the risk of any potential fraudulent activity online. Annabel Gorringe, an analyst at Datamonitor, said that 85 percent of consumers are certain that they will get their money returned to them if they are fraud victims. Because of this, they are failing to take basic preventative action to ensure the safety of their finances.
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