web shopping confidence

[TerryinMD]

I think the bigger issue in using Internet Shopping is trying to get around the shipping and handling charges or waiting for the product to be shipped. In some cases, the product you purchase is drop shipped from another company! So, you may have some lag time between the time you order and when you receive the item.

Terry

 

[Harv]

I don't know if you'd call it confidence or reckless abandon, but I've purchased over the internet:

- all 4 of my computers
- all of my peripherals (printers, scanners, Zip, MO, CD-Rom drives/burners, modems, routers, etc.)
- a great many computer supplies (paper, labels, ink cartridges, all types of disks, etc.)
- my digital camera and all related accessories
- many of my books and references
- much of my Christmas shopping (toys, video games, music CD's, etc.)
- miscellaneous tractor stuff (hitch pins, 3-pt lift pins, Chalkley Cup magnets

)

My wife (much more cautious) has purchased:

- Drugs and vitamins (the medicinal kind, of course [image]/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif[/image])
- Clothes
- Gardening supplies (small tools, seeds, bulbs, etc.)
- Books

Haven't been burned yet, but that doesn't mean we won't someday. We use a little common sense and stick with well-known vendors or ones that have at least been around for a period of years.

I happened to be talking to the attorney general's office one time (on a totally separate matter), and took the opportunity to ask about online purchase risks. They told me that the far greater risk is when your waiter/waitress walks off with your credit card in a restaurant. They're gone for several minutes and you have no idea what they're doing. Fact is, all too often they are either copying down the number or even using it before they return.

Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

 

[MikePA]

Adding to my post...

When anticipating buying anything, the first place I check is the Internet and, like Harv, I buy many different things. Lets see...I will try to keep this to general categories /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

PCs, digital cameras, PC memory, hard drives, printers, cell phones, diesel containers, hand tools, clothing, coffee, gifts, vacuum cleaner...It might be easier to list what I haven't bought over the Internet. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif I find a few good companies and stay with them. Gateway, Crucial, ATT Wireless, Lands End, Green Mountain Coffee, Nail Zone. Coastal Tool.

 

[BobT]

Whether you order online or off-line, almost every credit card vendor limits the amount you can "lose" due to fraudulent use of your card. The maximum loss is $50, even if somebody runs up tens of thousands of dollars in bogus charges on your card.

Sometimes you need to notify your bank within 24 or 48 hours. Sometimes they just cover you no matter what. Maybe they all do that now. I know that Amazon.com, for example, guarantees to cover you 100% against any loss due to fraud, in addition to your card issuer's protection.

The only real danger or risk, as far as I am concerned, would be in the unlikely event of outright theft of your identify. A single credit card number would probably not provide enough data to accomplish a full identify theft.

Even though hypothetically you should be covered even in identify theft, the nature of that crime is so convoluted and difficult to "prove" that you did not make the charges, or that "you" are not buying things, that identify theft looms as possibly one of the worst actual crimes short of physical attack.

People have wound up spending years, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees---just to get their identity "back." In a few extreme cases, the victim simply had to "start over" and "become" someone else. But, this is a very, very rare actual crime.

Like Harv, I am more or less a reckless online purchaser. Never burned yet, but tend to go with good vendor names online. I like the speed and convenience, almost always save money, plus the option of reversing the charge if I am dissatisfied or have any problem with the purchase. Identify theft could occur, but is just as likely off-line as on the Net. I think the odds, and the laws, are in my favor.

P.S. The best way to guard against identify theft is to purchase one of those "notification" services from the credit bureau. It costs around $30 a year, and they will notify you of ANY use of your credit accounts. Good insurance, IMO.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Call me old fashioned, but I use the internet to search a vendor's website, find what I want and then snag their phone number and CALL the order in. Frequently the websites may not have the latest or best pricing or may not show some new feature/option that has just become available. I just finished purchasing my new computer that way. I actually got the price $1.00 cheaper by calling in the order and talking to the human that answered the phone. (okay, $1.00 isn't much, but it'll buy a pack of gum to give me a nice bright /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif, besides, you get the idea.)

SHF

 

[MChalkley]

The list of stuff I've bought over the Internet looks about like Harv's. In all the years I've purchased stuff this way, I've had only one problem, and that was about two months ago. We got a credit card statement and it had a $1,000 (that's right - one thousand dollars) charge to an online gambling casino based in Italy on it. One phone call to the bank, followed by a signature on a form they sent us that day, took care of it. Nobody has a clue how they got my card number, but hacking into a site for it was the most likely way. It hasn't made any difference to me, as far as changing the way I buy things, though. I don't even know for a fact that a waiter somewhere I've eaten isn't selling card numbers to them. The banks are good about taking care of problems like that - that's what counts.

 

[Bird]

I've bought a lot of stuff on the Internet using credit cards and don't worry about it any more than using the card elsewhere. About 2 years ago, someone in a college town a couple of hundred miles from here used my Visa card to charge two months AOL service, but I don't know whether he/she got it from the Internet (as I suspect) or from somewhere else. At any rate, Visa promptly closed the account and sent me new cards with new numbers, and both AOL and Visa credited my account for the amount that had been charged; made one more very minor problem to straighten out to correct the double credit./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[ronjhall]

Danny
I have used several places to order from on the Internet. Most are very good. The only company I have had problems with was Shopping.com. Called my Credit Card company. They removed the charge from account. Never heard from Shopping.com again.
Today I use several Internet accounts to order camera, tractor parts, power tools, computers and all my Christmas shopping.
Yahoo shopping
Amazon.com
Carver Equipment
Tractor smart
Northern tool
Various reliable catalog companies that now have online sites.
I have had mostly good experiences with shopping on the Internet. I hope I never have to go back driving all over the country side to find products I need.

 

[Harv]

<font color=blue>Call me old fashioned</font color=blue>

Well ... okay, Old Fashioned, but I like your other names better. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

<font color=blue>find what I want and then snag their phone number and CALL the order in</font color=blue>

I won't fault you for doing it that way 'cuz that's the way I did it for years, but keep in mind that dictating your credit card number over the phone is considerably less secure than using a properly implemented internet transfer. For one thing, phone calls are nowhere near as private as you would like to believe, and when you think about it, what do you know about the person who is taking your call?

Sometimes it's just plain safer to eliminate as much human intervention as possible.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Harv

True on all counts. I just find it really hard to turn my number over to something that doesn't even have a voice.

I guess safety is a state of mind. If someone really wants your number, they can get it a thousand different ways. (Didn't I hear about Citibank getting hacked a few years back?). On the other hand, calling and placing an order helps keep the operators from losing their jobs and turning into telemarketers.

SHF