Well, I am knocking on wood because so far I have very lucky not to be a victim of hacking or identity theft. Unfortunately, a few close friends of mine have not been so lucky. In the era of online shopping and other activities we do using the Internet that require the use of credit/debit cards or entering personal information, we tend to search for sites that are secure and honor their word of not sharing information.
In the case of my two friends, they were shopping online. How weird is it that both thefts took place outside of the United States. For the one friend, her bank stopped the purchase because the bank found the purchase to be suspicious and contacted her to verify the purchase. Luckily, she confirmed the bank's suspicion and the charges were denied and the card deactivated.
In the case of my other friend, the malicious charges were accepted by American Express and he didn't realize he'd been hacked until receiving his statement with charges to iTunes for downloads of music he never would purchase. I do shop a lot online but to help ease the fear of this happening to me, I use Paypal.
I have found Paypal to be a useful tool when shopping. Paypal has expanded their services to many more retailers so that you can shop virtually anyplace. I've had my account for many years but never used it until recently. Being a small business owner, it has made my life a lot easier by using Paypal for my transactions with other small businesses also. If I'm just using a service one time, I don't have to give my information to them but go through Paypal instead.
As a warning, if anyone does a lot of online shopping, take the few minutes to open a Paypal account to protect yourself while shopping.
In the case of my two friends, they were shopping online. How weird is it that both thefts took place outside of the United States. For the one friend, her bank stopped the purchase because the bank found the purchase to be suspicious and contacted her to verify the purchase. Luckily, she confirmed the bank's suspicion and the charges were denied and the card deactivated.
In the case of my other friend, the malicious charges were accepted by American Express and he didn't realize he'd been hacked until receiving his statement with charges to iTunes for downloads of music he never would purchase. I do shop a lot online but to help ease the fear of this happening to me, I use Paypal.
I have found Paypal to be a useful tool when shopping. Paypal has expanded their services to many more retailers so that you can shop virtually anyplace. I've had my account for many years but never used it until recently. Being a small business owner, it has made my life a lot easier by using Paypal for my transactions with other small businesses also. If I'm just using a service one time, I don't have to give my information to them but go through Paypal instead.
As a warning, if anyone does a lot of online shopping, take the few minutes to open a Paypal account to protect yourself while shopping.
No comments:
Post a Comment