Ever had a transaction go through on your bank account while your card is nestled comfortably in your purse? This is often the first indication you get when you are being scammed by a fraudster. As online shopping increases, so does the chance of encountering online fraud. How can you protect yourself and what steps are the most effective?
For an online shopping experience that won’t leave you anxious, Mark Naicker, Experian’s Solutions Partner Manager shares some recommendations.
It is important note that the advice we share below may not be the silver bullet of digital transaction fraud prevention but serves as pointers to help you stay safe.
- Make use of your browser’s safety tools, to block pop-ups. You can find this option in the settings category of your opened web browser.
- Be vigilant and ensure URL domain addresses are spelt correctly. To the human eye instead of accessing a reputable ecommerce store like shopping.com you could access Shopping.com which is a completely different domain.
- Check out the reviews on the customer website and make use of external Trust and complaints for due diligence.
- Be cautious if the reviews are just too good to be true and are always 4star and 5-star ratings. This does not mean it is fraud but should cause you to be a bit more vigilant, as most eCommerce merchants would have some complaint or matter raised.
- Rather use your mobile data than use public Wi-Fi if you do not have a VPN. Public Wi-Fi is unsecure and prone to attacks.
- Password security is of the utmost importance as you do not want to make a password simple. Try not to use the same password across multiple websites, as the fraudsters will try this on various platforms – assuming that you would not want to remember different passwords. If remembering more than one password is difficult for you, the good thing is that you can now leverage of smart devices making use of biometrics as well, so that password would sit behind you accessing the website with your fingerprint for example.
- If, however you need to keep a password,do not make it easy. For example, Bulle@2023.
- If you are a Blue Bulls fanatic rather something that you could remember like: I Love the Blue Bulls 2023
- Take the first alphabet in each word to give you: ILTBB2023
- Then switch this up a bit to: iL@t33_2023
If you believe you’ve fallen victim to online fraud, it is important to notify your bank as soon as possible.
