Nowadays, shopping online is a very common thing. Making your purchases without leaving your house is an attractive option for many of us. Purchasing items over the internet using your credit card can be quite an unpleasant experience if you don't make sure your payments are safe. Although many people consider that using a credit card for online transactions is not safe, they continue using this method but with increased caution measures. The greatest risk we expose ourselves to when shopping online is identity theft. But this is not the only risk, and various studies reveal that people have also other concerns like: personal information will be sold to third parties, unauthorized recurring transactions, not receiving the ordered products or even higher prices than advertised prices.
Many people think that shopping online is risky, but the risk is not greater than others. Taking few precaution measures is the best thing to do unless you want to quite shopping online. First of all, we should not shop from unknown websites. Always look for the companies you know or ask someone to recommend you a site or a company that he/she uses. Still, if you're not sure of the vendor's identity try to find his address and phone number and check them. Also check the refund and return policies of the company in case they don't ship you the right products or you're not satisfied with their quality. Another thing to be careful about is the browser that you're using, it has to be a secured browser. A secured browser should include Secure Sockets Layer that scramble the information you are sending over the internet, making the transaction more secure. You can easily recognize a secured web site, because when you're filling in online orders or applications a closed padlock sign should appear at the bottom of the screen. Another way to make sure that the web site is secure is to check the URL; if it begins with "https" it means the transaction is secure because the "s" stands for secure.
Another important thing to be careful about is your privacy. The information you're submitting when you use your credit card online should be kept private by the company that receives it, meaning it should not be passed on or sold to third parties unless you agree. Most web sites ask for your permission to use personal details for direct marketing, and if you feel uncomfortable giving them permission you must know you have the right to object. Anyway, before submitting any personal details you should check the privacy policy of an website; if there are things not clear to you give them a call and see if your understanding is correct or not. Do not submit any information, unless you're absolutely sure that your credit card details are safe.
Being able to safely use credit cards for online purchases is not only the buyer's responsibility. The vendor has also his part of responsibility in ensuring safe purchases for his clients. Vendors also suffer from credit card frauds. They have to take some security measures in order for them and their customers to be protected against online credit card frauds. Security and privacy are two important aspects a vendor should take into consideration. He must ensure the client that the personal information submitted are kept private and at the same time he must check the details received to make sure that he's dealing with the real cardholder.
It is a well known fact that online credit card transactions are risky, because your personal information are exposed and can be stolen by others with the intention of using them to commit frauds. Yet, if the buyers are careful to whom they relies these information and the vendors are cautious from whom they receive credit card information, the risks of online credit card frauds decreases significantly. When disclosing personal information, common sense should exist.
This article has been provided courtesy of Creditor Web. Creditor Web offers great credit card articles available for reprint and other tools to help you search and compare credit card offers
~Using Credit Cards Securely Online.
~Shopping Online: What You Should Know.
For some people, shopping online is as normal as driving a car. It's become part of the norm. For others, the prospect of making internet purchases is a scary one. Here are a few tips to make your online shopping experience more rewarding.
Research the company or business that is selling to you:
- Look for a phone number and address; all legitimate businesses will have one.
- Understand the return policies, in case you're not happy with the product you receive.
- Ask questions. If the company has quality service, they'll have the answers for you.
Research the product or service you are buying:
- When shopping online, you don't get the benefit of picking it up the product and taking a good look at it. You may want to just use the internet for your research and later see if you can find it in a local store . But the internet also allows you to search for the best deals. So, in this sense, you may choose to use the local store to put you at ease about the product, and purchase it online to get the best price.
- Look for reviews of the product. Get unbiased opinions from consumers or consumer advocates who have experience with the product.
- Beware added taxes, fees, shipping, and handling costs. Sure, you may have found a great price, but make sure you're still getting one when all is said and done. Buying out of state or province could save you in taxes, but it might cost you in shipping. Check it out first.
- Allow for adequate delivery time, especially if you're buying a gift or purchasing around the holidays.
Look for a secure website when purchasing:
- Secure sites will have a URL that starts with "https" instead of "http". This means your confidential information (like your credit card number) will be protected with a security certificate.
- Look for a little yellow lock on the status bar at the bottom of your web browser. Double-click it to get information about the certificate that is protecting the site.
Be prepared:
- Keep a record of your purchase. Get an order number, confirmation number, or receipt and keep it handy, even after you receive the item. Treat it the same as an in-store purchase.
- If you run into a problem, don't give up. Contact the online merchant. Most reputable companies will want to make sure you are a happy customer.
~Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas - Part 4
As I stated previously, Parts 3 and 4, were not planned. They just happened as a result of all the mistakes I have made trying to get traffic to my website. Incidentally, these mistakes have had a rather deleterious effect on the balance of my credit card. Hence, my outspoken words on this subject.
If you have been following this series you will know that I am exposing some common "web traffic" frauds. Yes, I am up to calling most of them downright fraud and scam ideas now because I am just plain sick of their lack of information and virtual rubbish content.
In Part 3, I said I would reveal my experiences with the "schemes" which promise (hah!) to deliver a deluge-barrage-feast-battery of traffic to your site by way of banner advertising on "start up pages." I am referring, of course, to the opening page of your browser when you click on to the internet. In essence it is the default page. You can set it to whatever you want. Just be careful if you set it to a series of banner ads promising you more traffic. Here's why:
To explain this web-traffic "idea" properly I will create a fictitious name (not too far removed from what they actually call themselves, by the way). Let's call it "Hit Magnet Extraordinaire" or HME for short.
HME offers to place your banner on a start up page supposedly viewed by "millions" of viewers. They will even do it FREE. Fantastic, you think. Here is how it works. First, "to be fair", you have to set your own computer browser start up page to HME. When you do this you will be presented with six or eight or ten nice little banner ads.
HME always takes the prime "real estate" on your page right at the top. The HME banner is also very colorful in relation to everybody else's dull banners appearing below. It is usually three or four times bigger too, so it is very dominant. At this point you get that sneaking feeling that you might have been hijacked.
Other viewers get to see your banner (you do this by filling out description and detail forms). In return, you get to see their banners. Seems fair, doesn't it?
HME will even start you off with a quantity of FREE credits. Let me explain my understanding of how this works.
Every time you click on another website's banner and view their webpage for a minimum of thirty or sixty seconds, you earn credits. These credits add to your "credit aggregate." Every time somebody clicks on your banner you lose credits. Simple enough. It's a bit like debits and credits on your bank statement, if you want to think of an example.
I have tried some of these exchange programs. Here is what I found:
1 - from day one of your participation, you are always in credit points decline so you must devote precious time every day towards building these points up,
2 - to build credits you continually have to click on other people's banners even if you have absolutely zero interest in them, just to increase your credits,
3 - because other "traffic" participants are doing the same it just becomes a time consuming exercise in futility for everyone,
4 - often the banners you are basically forced to click on take more than a minute to load and some links do not work at all,
5 - the banners you see on your start-up screen are almost always the same with little or no variation day to day and week to week,
6 - the banner exchange site will not allow you to collect credits for any websites you have viewed in the last 24 hours (you can see the difficulty point 5 represents),7 - often your computer will jam trying to access links, giving you that dreaded "fatal exception" message,
8 - any traffic you do receive (and believe me - it will be minimal) will be completely unqualified and therefore worthless (reason - see 2 & 3 above).
You may have better luck but I have tried several of these "traffic generators" and despite their magnificent promises, no appreciable increase in traffic eventuated. I have the statistics to prove it. This leads me to my next point.
Statistics are something you simply must keep. I have a journal. Into it I write all the things I try to increase my hits. If you have a spike or a dip in your normal traffic trend you can trace it back to a certain event or events. If you get dips, stop doing the thing that caused it. If you have spikes, do more of the thing that caused it. It's that easy.
Now, some marketers may deem this little idea of mine so important they will base a whole $19.95 "special report" on it. Hey! - don't laugh. I have other reports that are equally banal. You can have that tip from me FREE.
I am very disillusioned with the schemes, scams and plans - call them what you like. I prefer to call most of them complete time and energy wasters - not to mention the money waste. If anybody has had any success at all with any of the so-called "traffic magnets," or "special reports" or "secret reports" or "information guarantees," I would like to know about it.
Similarly, if you are one of the people behind these techniques and you think I am being blatantly unfair - email me. But don't just say: "Mr Simpson, you are wrong!" Build your case. Give me clear proof, not rhetoric, that what you are promoting really works like you say it does.
And please, if you take up my offer, use your real email address and your real name. If you come at me with "Abraham Lincoln Continental" using an email like "alias753@hotmail.com, don't expect me to take you seriously. In fact, youwill probably go straight into that "Deleted Items" folder heading for... you guessed it!
Perhaps I should not be so cynical. However, I am tired of spending good money on bad junk. It annoys me that there is so much high-priced junk for sale.
I hope I have been able to offer some useful comments to other website owners. For my part, I might try other schemes. However, they will all have to pass the credibility tests that I have written about in this four part series.
Happy website building and don't forget - if you approach these things with the wariness they deserve, your credit card will be a lot healthier when you receive your statement.
All four parts of this topic are covered by copyright. However, all may be freely used providing there are no changes whatsoever to the content and the following resource box remains intact.
PS: If you think this information might help a friend from falling prey to these dubious practices you can send them a copy of this article (or any related parts) or direct them to the website URL given. Let's get the word out and put a stop to this.
~Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas - Part 3
It would seem from all the comments and attention I have received so far, that I have struck on a common complaint from website owners. So much so, that I have decided to write Part 3, which wasn't originally intended.
Yes, all website owners are looking for that magic formula which will give them added traffic to their sites.
You have created a brilliant site, full of wonderful information. You know people will just love it. However, there is one major problem. Nobody knows that it exists. Sound familiar? You are Michelangelo and you are confined to the Sistine Chapel where there is not a web-cam in sight for you to show your work to the world.
Enough joking around! This is meant to be serious.
You have already submitted to all the free search engines and directories. You wait. Weeks pass and your site is still not listed. You need traffic. You're desperate for traffic! So you do what thousands of others do, you submit to the temptation of all the clever marketeers who are out there waiting for people just like you (and me).
"Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly..." (er, sorry to inform you but you are the six-legged one here)
Have you noticed a few things about the "professors" of website traffic techniques? They all huddle together. They all refer to one another. They are all "cyber-friends." And, why shouldn't they be?
They are using one of the best marketing techniques since the day dot! Word of mouth, or in this case, word of click. They are in the business of referral. What better way to generateleads? It's a nice cosy little arrangement.
Marketer A promotes marketer B who promotes C who promotes D who promotes A. Hey presto! What do we have? We have a marketing web-ring of referring "experts" and "gurus." If you stumble into this web-ring you might just find yourself wanting to buy all those seemingly fabulous and heavily cross-referred products they offer. A, B, C and D all win. But what about you? I'm reckoning that four "information" products at an average price of US$39.95 each will set you back a cool US$159.80. Then of course, you will be bombarded with all manner of emails encouraging you to buy the latest "cutting edge" techniques as word goes out (via email) that you are hungry for information. Get yourself ready for a SPAM attack!
Here's a hint - when you get those ezines full of junk and forty lines of boring advertising links, simply go to your email settings and do the following. Highlight the line containing the offending email, go to the toolbar at the top of your screen, open up "Message" then come down and highlight "Block Sender."
This will divert the unwanted junk email to your "Deleted Items" list. When the list fills up you can then simply highlight the very top and bottom emails and everything in between by holding down the "Shift" key. Once they are all selected you can send them all to the rubbish tip by clicking "Delete".
Of course, you can always ask for the SPAM not to be sent but all that tends to do is alert the sender to the fact that you are a real live person on the other end. This can then become a signal for them to up the ante on you even more. Sometimes it is best just not to acknowledge certain emails. This is particularly true for all those annoying pornography sites that seem to specialize in this type of acknowledgement game. It's your choice.
So, you now have four or more "special reports" which you hope will reveal all the secrets of increasing web-traffic. Here's a sample:"How I Generated 1000's of Hits Per Day Using This Little Known Trick."
B - "The Amazing Web Traffic Secrets I Literally Stumbled Across While Playing Golf."
C - "The Guaranteed no-BS Way to Getting 100,000 Hits in Just Three Months."
D - "How I, Homer Zantuck, a Dumb High School Drop-out Fooled the Search Engines."
(Side note: Those titles are fictitious but if any budding new "gurus" would like to use them - please, be my guest!)
Sure, they might all contain a little snippet of information that you might find useful. But is the $29.95 or $39.97 or $47.77 price tag worth it? My experience says no. What you usually get are a few sheets of paper, often only one or two surrounded by hype and testimonials about what a marvel the author is. That is the "report."
You should be wary of testimonials. All websites use them, mine included. However, if you are basing all your hopes on what "Fred Jones from Albuquerque" or "Doreen P of East Norway" allegedly said then you should think again. Many testimonials are fictitious. The only truly credible testimonials are those which carry a "live" email or website address and even then such a person may be an "affiliate" (see Part 2). So, perform your own due diligence before you buy. If you do you will certainly save money.
I have a bit more to say yet on other web traffic promises and scams. However, if I include them here it will make this article unreasonably long. Therefore, stay tuned for Part 4 where I will reveal my experiences with those schemes which promise a deluge of traffic from banner advertising on "start up pages." They are a real doozy, so make sure you have a read.
cont' Part4......
~Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas - Part 2.
Here are a few little hints that might let you know, in advance, that the "special report" or "secret information" you are being offered to "build" your website and "flood it with traffic" might not be so special or secret after all:
- Ask yourself this: If the information is so special or secret why is it being sold to anyone and everyone who has $19.95 or $29.95 or $39.95 or whatever price is being asked? With the speed that information moves on the www, pretty soon it will be no secret at all - even if it truly was in the first place!
- A fancy name: The fancier the name the greater the probability that what you are being offered is just a cobbling together of widely known, FREE or old information. The thing to watch out for is the tying together of a well-known name or technique with an obscure one. (I could name examples, but that would really make certain people most unhappy.)
- Repetition of negative terms such as "no BS": I assume everybody understands what "BS" is. If, in fact, it were not BS, why would anybody go to such great lengths to say it is not? My advice is to stay away from anything using this type of description. If it walks like a duck and it looks like a duck and it quacks, well... chances are it really is a duck! Trust your instinct. Other things to be wary of are poor spelling and grammar. That should basically suggest to you that the quality of information will be just as poor.
- Have a time limit attached: Usually the time limit is, wait for it... midnight on exactly the same day that you are viewing the information. Funny that! Now why do you think that might be? You guessed it - to push you into purchasing now rather than later. This is impulse buying. Strike while the iron is hot (note: in this case, you are the iron!). Try this: If you are so impressed by the offer come back the next day and see if the offer is exactly the same. Midnight again, huh? Hmm...
- Have a bevy of "bonus" incentives attached: Now why would this be? It's to make the offer look BIGGER than it really is. Often the bonuses are nothing more than flimsy bits of information. Sometimes they are just sales pitches from other marketers. If the offer you are looking at does not stand by itself without bonus number one through to five, six or seven (I have seen up to 12), why purchase it? This is almost an admission by the copyright owner (or the cobble-together owner) that their product cannot stand alone for the price that they are asking. It's a trick!
- Any outrageous claims: These are designed to appeal to basic human greed. Greed can often blind you from reality. Anything that makes promises like "guaranteed to make you $10,000 in the first three months!" or "your hit counter will almost explode with the extra traffic!" are appealing to your greed and not your common-sense.In reality there is no magic formula to building a website and directing traffic through it. Like any business venture it takes time and effort. After you have expended that time and effort then yes, the time you spent and the effort you put in may well decrease or even become exponential. But don't hold your breath in the meantime.
Even testimonials and recommendations from other "independent" people and internet marketers should be viewed with a certain amount of caution. Many testimony and recommendation givers are "affiliates" (remember the "friend" from Part 1?) which means they earn commissions from the sale of the product. Why wouldn't they endorse something they stood to make money from?
The best testimonial or recommendation check you can do is to seek out the person giving it and ask them if they have any association with the person who is using the testimony or recommendation. Ask if they are an affiliate or if they have a vested interest in the product. You can do this quite innocently and nicely. If they are genuinely impressed by the product and what it did for them, they will probably be pleased to answer your enquiry.
Just a little word of caution here - if you are asking somebody for help don't put them through a trial. A simple email will suffice. Keep it short and to the point. Don't be too concerned if there is no reply. People get dozens, even hundreds of emails every day now. I know I do.
It would seem that there are just as many self proclaimed "experts" out there on the internet telling others "how to do it" as there are those actually "trying to do it." Sure, there are some credible people offering good advice (most often at quite a price too) but there are so many others offering absolute rubbish. How can you differentiate? The simple answer is that often you can't - until you actually get what is being offered. Then you realize. Oh-oh! Too late! It's junk!
If you don't get what you believed you were paying for you have every right to ask for a refund. However, this is not a method of receiving good information for FREE. Falsely asking for a refund on something that really did help you will bring your own integrity into question. Being fair is what it is all about - fair information for a fair price - an even two way exchange.
In summing up, website "newbies" are soft targets for the latest brand of snake-oil cyber salespeople. They are certainly out there. Think of it this way: you are searching for the Kings and Queens and Aces in the deck. Along the way you will find fives and threes and twos and sevens. You will even come across the Jokers. It's up to you to try and sort them out.
My advice is this: examine the information being offered then wait a day or two and come back to it. If it still looks as good to you the second time round and doesn't reek of some of the descriptions above, consider buying it. (I would even give the same advice for people visiting my own site.) Like me, you will soon "wise up." Along the way you will probably have to give your credit card a nice little "top up" to pay for your mistakes.
Purchasing e-books, special reports, secret documents and the like to learn how to increase traffic to your website is very subjective. The only way to measure the value of what you receive is to assess it against the "blurb" (see Part 1 ) used to promote it and the price you paid for it. As I mentioned above, both parties must be fair.
Just be wary.
If you know a website owner struggling to develop their site, this information could help them save a lot of money, not to mention that awful, sinking feeling that you have been duped. The money saved can then go towards some positive steps to develop their site. Heaven knows there is enough junk out there that will do the reverse. Some of it is sitting in my in-tray.
Cont' Part 3
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