Is it dangerous to buy online on seasonal sales? Following these basic tips, it won’t be

On dates of large figures of online purchases such as Christmas or seasonal sales, many people consider using this means to buy, but still feel reluctant for fear of possible dangers. And the reality is that, although the chances of being a victim of fraud remain very low, it is on this type of date when you have to be more careful when buying online.

Luckily, it is very easy to know if a site is reliable to buy or not, you just have to learn the keys that will help you find out in a few seconds. That is why today we show you the steps to follow to buy online on seasonal sales with total security, so that fear never again makes you lose a good buying opportunity.

Basic rules of online security

To begin with, we will see some basic online security rules that will avoid dislikes in any circumstance:

1. Never give the card PIN: this pin will only be requested by your bank’s ATM or your bank's website for very specific operations. Never give it to any website, do not send it by e-mail or anything similar. It is not necessary to complete purchases, in any case.
2. Do not make online purchases connected to a public Wi-Fi: the information you send through these networks may be visible to third parties and, if they have bad intentions, making purchases connected to this type of network would be a big mistake because you would be providing them your payment information.
3. Use complex passwords, try not to repeat them and change them regularly: this security rule that you will have read more than once is one of the least met but on more than one occasion it would have saved someone from getting in trouble. Keep in mind that there are applications that automatically generate and save very secure passwords so you don't have to memorize them, simplifying security work greatly.
4. Avoid being a victim of phishing and smishing: for this, never respond to e-mails or sms with personal data, even if you think you know the company that asks for them. If, for example, your bank asks for data, it will never do so by this means, but you must enter its website, log in and enter them in a secure way.

Buy online safely on a website we already know

If the website where you are about to buy something is already known to you because you have previously made purchases and everything went well, there is only one security measure you should take: make sure you really are on the website that you think you are.

A common fraudulent practice is to imitate a known website so that the buyer believes he is in another virtual store. Luckily, this is as easy to solve as checking that the URL is correct or, if you are not sure, searching Google for the name of the store you want to access and do so through the search results: the authentic one will appear among the first results.

Buy online safely on a website that we do NOT know previously

But in the case of buying in a new virtual store that we don’t know previously, we can also do it in a perfectly safe way, we will only have to check its validity through a few simple steps:

1. Distrust impossible discounts: a discount, by itself, is no reason to distrust a site completely, but if you find exaggerated discounts such as 80% or 90%, it is better to be alert and check the next steps well.
2. Check that it is a secure domain: for this it is as simple as looking for the little padlock next to the URL. Not all safe stores will have it, but if one has it, probably it is a secure shopping site.
3. Search for contact information, legal notice and conditions of purchase on the website: all these data offer veracity in an online business, especially contact information, the more there are, the better: telephone, e-mail, physical address, etc.
4. Search for online opinions and profiles in social media: this is a creative way to make sure that we are not on a “ghost” website. If it is a real and trustable online store, surely they will have social networks with customer comments or ratings of their products and quality of customer service on some internet websites.
5. Finally, common sense will tell us if it is a suspicious website: strange domains, a bad translation, lack of information... If you already have some experience shopping online, you will naturally suspect when a website feels untrustable.

But above all it is important to not panic. The chances of being a victim of online fraud are very low and the authorities identify and close fraudulent websites daily so that buying online is something safe for everyone. So we encourage you to enjoy the sales also online by following these simple security measures.

And if you have an online store and want to make it more secure, do not hesitate to contact us to learn more about our secure payment gateway, with the best technology and different systems that make it one of the safest in the market.