Online grocery shopping is easy and convenient. It takes just a few clicks to order a product and have it delivered to your front door. Maybe you can add a few clicks more for product and price comparisons across websites, but that’s about it, Hassle free and comfortable.
Online grocery shopping or online supermarket visitors are easy prey for cyber criminals. Hence it is quite essential to talk about measures how to protect yourself against such deceitful criminals.
We are going to share some valuable tips in anticipation that these online grocery shopping tips will help you purchase products on safe online grocery stores and escape online rogues:
Always visit the Reliable Sites
The malevolent hackers are apt to trap the online shoppers through fake online shopping websites. Even the dexterous surfers fall victim to them when they find very attractive offers on required goods. Everyone does not buy from safe online supermarket or store like Basketor, Amazon or Grofers. Fake websites may either infect you just at your arrival on them by way of drive-by-downloads, or malicious links they offer. Whatsoever, the most dangerous moment that one should be concerned about is the checkout process for this process will give cyber criminals one’s most important information like: credit card data, name and address. Such information opens up to identity theft, credit card fraud or social engineering assault.
How to Recognize a Fake Website:
Beware of strange URLs as “prada-at-awesome-price.com” or “the-bestonlineshopping.com”. Overall, these look offering a lucrative benefit.
Such fake websites claim to be specialized in grocery but also sell flats or furniture.
Written descriptions are ambiguous on illegitimate sites. Any self-respecting online grocery store will hire an expert copywriter to produce with beautiful product descriptions. As soon as you find meaningless details of products get alarmed of the site.
These sites keep distorted email addresses for customer service such as “amzonsuppor[at]gmail.com” instead of “amazon.in” then you can bet that online shop is fake.
The rates of goods are ridiculously low. An online shopping site that has a pair of leather shoes for Rs.200 is most likely trying to deceive you.
The design of fraudulent sites is very strange whereas online shops, particularly those in the fashion range, take too much care of their design and usability.
Access secure shopping sites for protected information
When you want to make purchase from online grocery store, make sure that it has SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption installed.
The site with SSL will start with https:// and then notice the lock symbol which is at the top in the address bar.
If you use a browser extension like HTTPS, it is effective everywhere that encrypts connection to major sites and increases your information security to escape falling a prey.
Always use secure connections
Some people think Wi-Fi is a more important resource than water or food. We admit their arguments are fairly convincing (a Wi-Fi connection allows you to buy as much food/water as you need).
Wi-Fi usage is insecure to make online purchase. Unsecured connections allow a hacker to pick off all of your traffic and see the activities you perform on an online grocery store in real time. This means checkout information, passwords, emails, addresses etc.
The WI-FI connection of hackers is open and doesn’t keep any password. The most secure type of encryption for Wi-Fi routers is WPA2 AES, and provides a far better protection than WEP or WPA however this type of connection can also be hacked by a persistent attacker.
Keep an eye on your bank account
Online Malice mongers really want your credit card information that’s why an online shopping or any other online shop is an easy and frequent target for them to get their hands on such details. Sometimes such information get hacked from the sites of online shopping stores and their information falls into the reach of cyber criminals.
For the same reason, one must schedule a periodical review to one’s bank account and check up when feel any suspicious activity.
Whenever possible, try to activate two-factor authentication payment methods. Don’t forget to keep a confirmation numbers and emails for every online purchase that you do.
Keep your PC protected with antivirus
Using a good antivirus is one of the most important online grocery shopping tips. Take it granted that it will struggle to block out the newest and most sophisticated threats out there, but it will keep you safe and secure against malwares.
There are some more effective tools out there to help you make safe online shopping when an antivirus breaks down. Sometimes, it becomes effective after a malware has entered your PC.
To avoid such harm on your PC despite an antivirus, use an advanced traffic scanner that can filter incoming and outgoing traffic to your PC and detect any potential malware.
Password manager for secure shopping accounts
We frequently do online purchases from multiple online grocery shopping stores that specialize around a particular niche. Albeit, most people simply reuse the same password for each account that allow itself a major security risk.
Always keep a strong security password to avoid any malfunction on your account.
Moreover, a password manager like Dashlane or LastPass will greatly simplify and secure your login process, by helping you come up with more secure passwords and automatically introducing your login details.
- Observe a few relevant online grocery shopping tips:
- Avoid clicking on any suspicious links or emails;
- Report any site that seems fraudulent, and also use the “flag as spam” button for any suspicious email;
- Don’t reveal more personal information than needed in order to make purchase.
Purchase from spam or phishing emails have risk
A phishing email with a fake offer for a desirable product allures many online shoppers, so they make a spontaneous decision and click on the “Order product” or “Buy now”, and it is the moment when the malware attacks.
A phishing email with a fake offer for a desirable product allures many online shoppers, so they make a spontaneous decision and click on the “Order product” or “Buy now”, and it is the moment when the malware attacks.
In these cases simply mark the email as spam and this action will remove the mail from your inbox and block the sender from delivering such spam.
Mind your private information
In order to do shopping from online grocery store, you have to provide only two types of information: payment information, such as credit cards data, and shipping address which is usually your home or work place.
Get alarmed of the online grocery stores that ask for information such as: date of birth, social security number or any other such information. They have no need of it to sell their products online.
For safety reason, you can pay directly to the delivery agent instead of paying by credit card. This will not leave any chance for hackers to access your details.
Be careful of your receipts and destroy them when not needed
It is noticeable to keep receipt for your purchase, just in case you want to confirm it again, as well as you may need it for warranty or return issues.
But If you think to get rid of a receipt, make sure to destroy it completely without leaving any possible information for the hackers.
Information on your smartphone
Now-a-days, smartphones are full personal information. Such phones are more than a calling device as people have innumerable photos, documents, social media and so on.
The same device works for online grocery shopping store, but this is prone to its own risks. Fake online shopping store can infect your smartphone with malware, and then can access to information such as phone numbers, documents, notes, photos, and even app contents from it.
That’s why, we recommend carry as little information as possible on your mobile phone, and in place of it either keep it offline or store on cloud solutions.
Mobile device is safer than PC
Major retailers, have dedicated mobile apps. Their Apps are more secure online shopping channels than websites for the deceitful hackers need to create specific attacks for specific apps while websites are easy to befool. Hence, mobile apps are the safest way to make online purchase.
Prefer credit card to debit card
In comparison to debit cards, credit cards have some extra-legal defenses built in that make them safer to buy stuff from online grocery store or online supermarket.
Firstly, with credit cards you aren’t liable if someone does fraudulent credit card transactions provided that you report the fraud to bank in a timely manner.
Secondly, credit cards allow you leverage when it comes to any dispute of transactions with an online grocery store. If you have paid with a debit card, it is rare to get your money back unless the online grocery store agrees to it. With credit cards, the money that you have paid for a product isn’t counted against you until the due process takes place.
Conclusion
Online grocery store shopping safety is a growing concern among both e-retailers and the online shoppers. The former consider to protect their reputation and to retain the trust of consumers while the latter worry about the safety of their money.
In spite of a lot of progress made in IT sector, such as two-factor authentication and improved infrastructure, but the cases of online frauds are alarming bells to get well versed in all the online grocery shopping tips for safer tomorrow.
