When you want to use online services you have to be sure that they are reliable. It is not good to risk finding a site that is not legal or does not offer reliable products. Many reviews can help you find out if a site is safe. People who have experienced unpleasant things with certain online service providers will want to share this with other users.
In this article, we offer a series of tips and tools that, although they will not reduce the risk to 0, will minimize it as much as possible, so that you can find more reliable online services and more experienced.
1. Pay attention to the basics for reliable online services
Let’s start with the basics: notice that the address bar displays “HTTPS: //” and not “HTTP: //”. The first is an improved version of conventional HTTP to which Secure Sockets Layer (Transmission Layer Security) SSL / TLS security protocols have been incorporated to encrypt packets that are sent over the web. If you use Chrome, it will directly mark them as insecure. It is not an infallible method, but it is the first step. According to Let’s Encrypt, about 81% of sites around the world have this protocol, but there are still some pretty popular ones that don’t.
It may be the case that there are websites without HTTPS or padlock on all their pages, but they must have them on the pages for entering personal data and payment. Otherwise, better not buy.
2. Social networks and feedback
The subject of social media is a good indicator for two reasons. To begin with, they are a tool for customer loyalty and attraction, so it is common for online stores to have profiles from which to interact and promote their products. To do this, check if they are active.
3. Privacy policy and contact details
In addition to the usual contact forms, online commerce web pages must display data such as your full name, NIF, physical address, and telephone number, which serve as a reference. We will have to arm ourselves patiently because they are usually quite hidden: at the bottom of the web, in the legal notice, contact, privacy policy. Also, if they do not appear, it is not a good sign.
4. Let’s talk about prices and payment methods
The fact that a price is much lower than the market value is already suspicious in itself: large stores follow very aggressive strategies, such as matching prices to offer competitive prices, so an unknown and probably lower store goes down is rare, rare.
Regarding the forms of payment, if we do not know the business, it is better to rely on services that act as intermediaries such as PayPal or prepaid cards in their physical or virtual way, to which we can enter the amount to be paid. However, classic books also offer guarantees against scams.
5. Be careful if the site looks suspicious
Last but not least, the user will always look for the web page where he purchases to be fast, to have a professional design, to offer the products with transparency, and to facilitate the payment of the objects for sale through the local banks.
It’s best to leave out pages that have poorly translated text, poor quality images, that browse slowly, with few products in stock, suspicious forms of payment, and even that have a weird domain or URL, such as “Cheap internet” shopping .com “.
