How To Avoid Online Shopping Fraud.

 attempts of the most different types are a common reality. With the digital revolution and the increase in online shopping, cases in this segment are increasing. To help you avoid exposure to these frauds, which can bring financial risks and headaches, we’ve prepared a few tips. Check out! 

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Even with the risk of fraud in purchases, is it worth buying over the Internet?

The advantages of buying online are many. Scrolling becomes unnecessary and you can search for prices in many places with few clicks. In addition, it is also possible to discover new developments that you didn’t even know about, have easy access to imported products and also easily consult the manufacturer’s information.

The big trend in commerce is to become more and more virtual, so that physical stores have ended up  becoming showrooms . The purpose will be for the consumer to handle and try out products to buy them more safely over the internet.

So, if out of fear of exposing yourself to fraud you are thinking about avoiding online shopping, the advice here is to give up. In addition to spending a lot more and running the risk of not updating yourself quickly with the best news on the market, you will be going against the trend.

And being the trend, sooner or later you will need to adapt, there is no escape. So the sooner you learn how to protect yourself from fraud and familiarize yourself with the world of online shopping, the better.

How to prevent fraud in online shopping?  

The high volume of purchases and money circulating in e-commerces, motivated by the facilities that online purchases offer, makes the internet become the most used new medium for fraud and scams of all kinds. As online shopping is an inevitable trend, it is up to customers to know the main types of fraud and prevent them, being careful not to get caught.

Check out the 4 best tips to avoid falling into scams and online shopping fraud.

1. PREFER BETTER-KNOWN STORES AND TEST THE LESSER-KNOWN ONES

It’s common for the best prices online to be found at stores you’ve never heard of. This is precisely because by having their lesser-known brands, these smaller businesses need to use the final price as a competitive differential to gain market share.

Buying from them can be a great commercial advantage, but also a great risk, since it can be a shell company that pays for purchases and does not deliver the products. Therefore, it is important to carefully consider all the costs involved in the purchase (freight, payment terms, delivery time, among others) and compare them with the terms offered by better-known stores.

If the price difference is still quite large and buying from a well-known store is much cheaper, it is worth making a trial purchase. Make transactions with small commercial value to assess the seriousness of the company, commitment to delivery deadlines and quality of service in case you need support.

2. MONITOR STORE REPUTATION HELPS PREVENT SHOPPING FRAUD

For both little-known stores and large chains, it is very important to check the reputation of ecommerce. This is because the “ modus operandi ” of an online commerce is very different from a traditional physical commerce. This makes, unfortunately, common for stores that have an incredible service in the physical establishment, leaving a lot to be desired in online shopping.

In addition, the largest chain stores have followed the trend of working in the Marketplace format . Therefore, the websites of these stores end up becoming just a showcase for small manufacturers to display their products, as they are responsible for billing orders and sending them directly to the final consumer. 

Therefore, you can be on the Americana stores website, for example, choosing a product with a very attractive price, but in fact you are buying from a small local store. Therefore, even though the large e-commerce networks select their commercial partners well, it is important to be very attentive when buying, noting the name of the company from whom you are buying, to check its credibility. 

To check the store’s reputation, check sites such as Reclame Aqui and eBit, which are references for public opinion on online shopping and service. You can also check, in online surveys, if the store has CNPJ, physical address and easy contact channels with the consumer. 

3. PREFER TO BUY WITH A CREDIT CARD 

Few people know but there is legislation that protects online purchases, giving the consumer the right to cancel the purchase without any justification for up to 7 days after receiving the product. However, even with this protection, shopping online with a credit card is one of the safest methods of payment today.

 This is because the consumer is able to request cancellation of the charge by the card operator in case of disagreements or suspected fraud. And the possibility of dealing directly with your card operator makes your “refund” much more agile than the return of money from a transfer or payment of a bank slip, for example.

However, it is very important to keep your credit card details secure so that only highly trusted people have access. In addition, it is also a good practice to generate virtual credit cards for online purchases, valid for a single purchase, to avoid losses from card cloning.

4. PAY ATTENTION TO THE URLS OF THE SITES YOU BUY FROM

Much of the fraud that occur in online shopping comes -If cloning sites e-commerce very renowned. By making the fraudulent website look exactly like the original store, criminals make identification difficult for consumers.

Therefore, it is extremely important to pay attention to the URL, that is, the email address of the website where you are shopping. Check out the example in the image below: 

In cases of fraud, sites are left with the initial part of the URL very similar, but with some difference in relation to the original. So pay attention, the root of the site’s URL, that is, everything that is written before the slash (/), must always be the same as the original store. 

The codes that appear after the bar generally indicate which category of products you are browsing or include the code of an ad you have clicked on, not posing greater dangers, also see our article How to know if your computer has been hacked .