By Michele Chan Santos

If you’re like most people, you’re careful with your purse or wallet when you’re at the mall. You probably faithfully lock your car, and would never dream of leaving your house without locking the door.

But when it comes to shopping online, you may be one of the many who commit the online equivalent of leaving your purse in the grocery cart.

You need to think about different threats in different environments,” said R. Dayle Alsbury, director of security services for Trace Security, a Baton Rouge company that specializes in improving the safety of computerized information systems in large companies. Experts from Trace Security are nationally recognized authorities on cybercrime and regularly appear on NBC’s Today Show.

“In the mall, you watch your credit card. Online, you don’t want to give out your credit card number to a non-secure website,” Alsbury said. “People think their computer is safe, but there may be a hacker on the other end of the line, or a crook.”

With Alsbury’s help, we developed the following list of “Nine Ways to Avoid Getting Ripped Off Online.”

1. Make sure you are shopping at a secure site. The most important items to look for are the symbol of a key, the symbol of a closed padlock, and the “https:” at the beginning of the site address. All of these are indications of a site which uses encryption technology, which means information like your credit card number is scrambled so hackers can’t get it.

2. Check whether the business you are buying from online is legitimate. Real companies have a phone number and office somewhere, and are not just running sites to entice people to type in their credit card numbers. Call the phone number listed on the site to make sure it’s real, Alsbury said. And then look the number up at www.anywho.com or www.yellowpages.com. You should find that the number corresponds with a real business associated with the sale.

3. Don’t fall for the “age verification” scam. This common scam, Alsbury said, asks people to enter their credit card number in order to verify that they’re old enough to shop at a website. In reality, a con artist is taking those numbers in order to steal them. You should never have to “verify” your age at a legitimate site.

4. Make sure you are shopping at a site with clearly posted privacy and repair policies. All legitimate sites should have these. You want to know what to do if you need to make a return.

5. Never use your debit card for online purchases. Always use a credit card. If a scammer gets hold of your credit card number and makes fraudulent charges, VISA and other credit cards generally only hold you responsible for the first $50, and will cancel the rest of the charges. However, if the thief has your debit card number, he or she can drain your checking account. “If they take out everything that’s in there, how are you going to buy groceries?” Alsbury said. “If it’s on your VISA card, they’re draining VISA’s money, not yours.”

6. Don’t follow a link that appears in an email; it could be a trap. You may get an email that looks perfectly legitimate, with the brand name or logo from www.nordstrom.com or www.target.com or some other store. But if you really want to go to one of these sites, type the address into your URL field. If you click on the link from your email, you’ll end up putting in your username and password, or an account number. Next thing you know, you’ll be redirected to the real site, but in the few seconds when you were typing, your information was captured by a cyber-criminal, Alsbury said.

7. Don’t be greedy. “I always follow my grandfather’s advice, which is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Alsbury said. “I shop online all the time. But I don’t let the desire to get a really good deal override my sense of prudency.” Items priced very low could be stolen, or they could be an attempt to get you to send money for a product you’ll never receive. “Trust me, nobody is going to sell the same thing Wal-Mart does for half the price,” he said.

8. Trust your instincts. If you complete an online transaction but have a funny feeling about it, call your credit card company. They can read you a list of your most recent charges, and if any of those were made by a thief, you can stop charges on the card right away.

9. Don’t fall for the “overpayment” scam. This applies to people who sell items on online auction sites. For example, say you are selling a camera online for $300. Someone contacts you and offers to pay you $400. They send you a check, saying you can pay for the shipping and handling out of the extra $100 they sent you, and you can then send them the change. Many gullible people, Alsbury said, fall for this and mail the item before trying to cash the check. You might mail the camera, cash the check and then find that it bounces – and now you’ve lost your camera forever.

Michele Chan Santos is a freelance writer who has written about health, lifestyle trends, personal finance, real estate and architecture for more than 10 years. She has written for MSN.com, The Dallas Morning News, The Austin-American Statesman and Catholic News Service.

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