Purchase
Security tips for newcomers
Here are basic tips for beginners that could be useful for secure internet shopping and help to avoid the most common mistakes. Let's start, shall we?
1. Place your orders with only certified stores and trusted sellers. You can examine them yourselves or use any search service (Google suits best for checking international online-stores).
2. Be suspicious of below-market priced items. This piece of advice may seem obvious and yet there are thousands of websites offering brand new cellphones, cameras, PCs and other goods at the incredibly low prices. Sadly, those "stores" find their customers. Those will never send you orders if the payment was made beforehand. Alongside with the complete fraud, the selling of fakes and simulations is also widely practiced among fraudulent sites. It means that if an item you found costs several times lower than the official store offers it is most likely online-fraudsters.
3. No more communication with a seller is required after a purchase is made and the order is dispatched. If a seller contacts you and asks to make additional payments for any reason it is highly recommended not to do it. There may be various reasoning behind that and the most common is an order being held with customs requires the import fees to be paid. Please, remember, an order must be delivered to you after the payment is received by a seller and there can't be any more charges further on. The import fees are imposed and charged by the Customs representatives or postal services.
4. Little-known small stores have quite an expensive delivery and may cancel their orders. That are not fraudulent actions but you need to be aware of such turn of events. This rather unstable work stems from these stores sell products not having them in stock. The goods are only ordered from a supplier after a purchase is made which means the stores sell goods they do not produce. This results in above the limit delays and cancellations.
5. Make sure the connection was encrypted while paying. Every reliable online store dealing with payments has the encryption. Blue or green line appearing in your browser address line indicates the connection was encrypted.
6. It is not recommended to pay for the orders via bank transfer, Western Union, by cheque or postal order if you don't have 100% positiveness for an online store. These payment methods make it nearly impossible to get the funds back if run across the fraud.
7. Use only certified postage with the online tracking opportunity. Before purchasing make sure a store/seller uses the certified postage services as it raises the sustainability of the delivery.
8. Try to always insure your shipments. It will allow you to avoid the possible losses if your parcel is somehow damaged during transportation.
9. When receiving a parcel, please, make sure it contains exactly what you purchased and do not sign for the delivery if it doesn't. Refuse to accept the delivery and request a formal note from a postal service if so. If a parcel has visible damages or the weight discrepancy it may be accepted on the terms of its condition to be satisfying but it is desirable to take a formal note on the description of all the inconsistencies and damages signed by a post officer. It will help to get the insurance in the future if the contents are damaged or lost.
We hope these tips will help you in your online shopping and save you from any negative experience on the route!