Online shopping is how most people will make it through the holidays. But if you think you are completely safe shopping on the internet, you may want to reconsider. Or at least use these tips to protect you from all those web scammers and holiday hackers.

Amazon Prime is scheduling October 11th and 12th for “2 Days of Holiday Deals.” And there are only 77 days left to get your Christmas shopping taken care of. 

Meanwhile, scammers are trolling all your searches to find out what products shoppers are after.

According to Melissa Lanning Trumpower, the Better Business Bureau’s Marketplace Trust division “When you click on things, even if you don’t make a purchase, scammers have access to those tools, so they can get a good gauge of what it is you’re looking for. They’re always looking for the most popular products to offer those up to consumers at the best price, and as we know price is the key factor to falling prey to a scam so that’s something we need to be careful about.”

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If no one else has that product, and it’s a great price, just be very careful and proceed with caution,” Trumpower adds.

So, before you click on that holiday mug make sure you have the right tools and the tech information you need. 

3 Tips to Protect Against Online Scammers while Online Shopping

1. Create a unique username and password for every account. 

Keeping your personal information safe and secure is the right way to start. 

Online retailers enable you to set up an account on their website. This allows them to store your personal information and your credit card number in their system. 

Users can also log in to track the status of their orders and view their order history. It simplifies the process and makes reordering items easy. 

Keep in mind that every account you set up needs a unique username and password. 

If you have multiple accounts with various online retailers, and you use the same username/password each time you are at risk. If a hacker gains access to the retail site and gets your login info they have access to every account, you use.

You may even want to use a password manager like LastPass Premium or RoboForm. A password manager helps you generate random passwords for all your online accounts. Once the passwords are created, the software simplifies online shopping. It even automatically fills in those passwords for you.

Create and use unique login and passwords. And don’t store them on your computer!  Write your login/passwords down in a safe place or use a password manager program.”

2. Do Online Shopping from secure URLs. 

Look before you click! 

Hackers use a variety of phishing scams to create fake emails and websites to attract consumers. And steal their information. They can clone a retailer’s website seamlessly. And the user, soon to be the consumer, has no idea. And find out too late.

For example, if an email hits your inbox that looks like it’s from a popular online retailer offering 50% off don’t click it. Don’t click on any image or link from an email. 

Any secure website is encrypted. And allows you to complete a purchase and enter your personal and credit card information without being hacked.

There are a lot of clone sites out there. It’s always it’s best to go directly to your web browser and type in the URL. This guarantees you are visiting a secure site.

A URL should begin with “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP” to ensure it is safe.

3. Monitor your credit cards/bank accounts

Statistics show that one U.S. citizen is a victim of identity theft every three seconds.

It’s time to be proactive. Check your credit card/bank account activity every day. Request alerts for total purchases over a certain amount. And monitor activity so you know when unauthorized charges hit your account.

If you find an issue the FTC requires credit card companies to allow you to dispute charges. 

If you suspect you have fallen victim to a scam, get in touch with the company or bank. They have a process to dispute unauthorized charges or temporarily withhold payment.

Bonus Tip: Never use Wi-Fi in public places to do your online shopping. Even if it’s free your data is not encrypted. And hackers often lurk around public Wi-Fi. Hackers can also create fraudulent Wi-Fi networks. If you connect to their password-free network, they have control of your device.