Online Shopping Safety Tips
Identity thieves and fraudsters will sometimes create web pages or web sites that are similar to that those of legitimate ecommerce sites, or use a web addresses that are similar to those of reputable businesses. For example, the address of the phony Web site or Web page may use a common misspelling of the company's name or may add a word, symbol or number before or after the name. Here are some telltale signs a website is questionable:
- Broken graphics, grammatical errors, misspellings, and poorly written sentences.
- A sense of urgency or immediate action required.
- Requests for personal or confidential information.
- Links that go to an unknown Web site or a Web site that looks similar but the site address may be slightly altered. Recheck any typed web addresses or URLs to ensure it was entered correctly before providing personal information on a site.
- Be suspicious of an information-collecting Web page that is not linked to a known home page for the company, or the home page has an "under construction" message on it.
- Look for the presence of an "@" symbol anywhere in the page URL. This is usually indicative of a fraudulent Web site.