There is no doubt that online shopping brings a huge amount of convenience to the end customer. In our endeavor to get the maximum value, we often go hunting for the best deals online. In this mad search, some of us tend to get a little careless and tend to leave our thinking caps behind. We may be putting our financial health at risk. Here are some tips to ensure that your online shopping experience remains a pleasant one and you are protected from bad experiences:

Be Alert and Wise: It is important to be aware of your surroundings and what is happening in the online world. There are numerous scams and frauds, which exploits human weaknesses like greed and curiosity. Here are some (but not all) of the scams:

Email Scams: Earn Money Scam: These promise you a share of a large amount of money, usually originating from a foreign country. Such scams seeks to harvest your bank details or ask you to send some money to get a larger amount of money. Get a Boyfriend/ Girlfriend Scam: These emails usually ask you to link up with a member of the opposite sex and then over time you are asked to either send money or share your bank details to help him/her tide over some problem. Update bank Details Scam: You receive a mail from your bank asking to update your bank details. The look and feel of the mail matches with your bank's branding and you can be fooled into sharing your bank details with the fraudster who has sent you the mail.

Website Scams: Usually a website will pose as a genuine sales website and offer products at a throwaway price. When a customer decides to purchase a product, he is asked to enter the card details or the bank account details on the website's payment page. Some of these websites even get an encrypted page to lull the customer into believing that they are entering their confidential details on a genuine encrypted page. When you complete putting in all your confidential details and give instructions for the page to proceed, you are shown a transaction failed message. Your confidential data is actually captured by the `scamster' and then sold off to criminals to use elsewhere. A month later, you will receive a statement from your card company or your bank and you will see lots of transactions which have not been done by you. Only then, you will realize that you have been cheated. By then it is too late and the money would have been taken out by the criminals.

Remember, if you ever see anything in your bank or card statement that is out of the ordinary, bring it to the notice of the bank immediately. According to the latest processes, the bank will alert you through an SMS to your mobile whenever a transaction takes place on your account or card. If you have not signed on for this service or have not registered your mobile with your bank, please do so immediately as it will help you arrest and stop irregularities on your account very quickly.

Take Precautions:

	Restrict others access to your computer. Do not let anyone else use your computer unless you have to. Someone with bad intentions can put in a tool such as, say, a key logger and ferret out all your passwords and other sensitive information. When you are away from your computer, lock your screen with a password to prevent unauthorized access. Also, there is several malicious software which may install themselves in your computer, without your knowledge, through an infected website. They may install programs like key logger in your system. A key logger identifies the key you press in your keyboard and hijack sensitive numbers and pass words. To combat this, you can install a number of good free software packages which can check such software from invading your machine. Another safe way to operate your computer for banking operations is by installing Firewall. This software does not allow an unauthorized user or software program to invade your system. You can download an excellent Firewall programs to protect your system.
	Minimize usage of public computers: One can define public computers as those computers where many people have access and which are a part of an unknown network. Usually computers placed at airports, cyber cafes, public libraries etc would fall into such category.  Avoid entering any sensitive data anywhere using such a public computer.
	Manage Passwords Well:  Do not give out your passwords to anyone; do not save them on any website or leave a sticky tab on your computer with them.  Deselect the `remember password' tab on your browser and ensure that you close the browser after use so that the cache is clear. Keep      changing your passwords regularly and use a combination of capital letters, digits and special characters to keep your password secure.

Transaction Safety: To transact safely online you need to take the following precautions:

	Research the Website: Study the website closely and check who the promoters are and if they are accessible. See if they are associated with reputed companies. See if they have a customer dispute resolution mechanism clearly mentioned. Check to see their policies on product returns and disputes. Beware of the following: The site makes offers that seem too good to be true, indicating a possible scam or the sale of illegal or pirated products. You are lured to the site by a bait and switch scheme, in which the product or service is not what you were expecting. You are asked for a credit card as a verification of identity or for personal information that does not seem necessary. You are asked to provide a credit card number without proof that the transaction is secure.
	Check the Payment Gateway: Check if the payment gateway used by the website is reputed and if the payments page is encrypted. Usually websites that use reputed payment gateways like CCAvenue are thoroughly checked and verified as genuine businesses. Click on the lock symbol and check if the security certificate is indeed in the name of the payment gateway company, if the data is encrypted and if the certificate is currently valid.
	Entering Confidential Data: When entering the credit card data, please ensure that the data is entered only on a secure page of the merchant or the payment gateway. If you are making a payment through net banking, then please ensure that you enter the user name and password only on your bank's secure page and not on any other page.
	Closing a Transaction: After you complete your transaction there are a couple of actions you should do: Make sure you actually log out from the site. Do not just shut the browser or browser tab. There is another step you can take to truly ensure privacy and security - clear your web browser's cache. This is simple to do - just click on the options or preferences for your particular browser and clean it out. This may seem like overkill and may be you do not want to do it every time but if there is any public access to your computer, why take a chance. At the very least shut the browser down, while this will not clear the cache it will fully disconnect the connection to your bank's server.

We are giving below a ready reference of some of the terminologies used while transacting online:

Card No. : Card No. is the 16 digit card number (Visa and MasterCard) 15 digit (American Express) on the face of your credit or debit card. This is one of the fields to be entered on the payment page of a payment gateway to do an online transaction.

Card Expiry Date: This is the card expiry date found on the front of the credit or debit card. This is also one of the fields to be entered on the payment page of a payment gateway to do an online transaction.

CVV Number:  Card Verification Value Number is a 3 digit number found at the back of the Credit / Debit Card. This is also one of the fields to be entered on the payment page of a payment gateway to do an online transaction. The idea is that if a fraudster has photocopied the front of the card or has a copy of the charge-slip (the counterfoil that you sign when using your card in the real world), this CVV number which is found on the back of the card will not be with him. This check was not very effective in preventing online fraud as the criminal could easily turnover the card and copy the CVV number at the time of copying your card details.

Verified By Visa (also known as VBV) is a secret pin number that needs to be entered by you while doing an online transaction using a Visa Card. Like your ATM PIN number, this secret pin number (which is a different number than your ATM PIN) is mailed to you after you apply for it in writing to your card issuing bank. Since this number does not appear anywhere on the card, using this process is considered to be safe for online shopping. However, you have to be careful that this number is never shared or entered by you on a page other than your bank's page.

MasterCard Secure Code (also known as MSC) is the MasterCard equivalent of VBV.

Charge Back: Charge Back is a term used for raising a dispute with your bank on a transaction that you have not done and which appears on your card statement. In such cases, you need to write to your card issuing bank and send them a bank prescribed form claiming a reversal of the disputed transaction. They may ask for additional information after this. The bank will then investigate and offer you an interim relief till it completes its investigation. Upon completion of their investigation, they may either accept or reject your chargeback request.