Online stores have become one of the most reliable business in the world due to all the open possibilities that it offers either for customers and sellers to connect with people around the world to sell a determinate service or product in a short amount of time (depending on the buyer geographical location) and the best feature of it without any doubt is the fact that your purchase is secured by the hand of a very reliable product warranty that famous online stores have included in their system to protect every customer against scammers or fake sellers.
All of that sounds good isn’ it? But sadly it has a bad side, it’s true that in countries like the US most of the 75% of the population shops more than twice times per month in any online store, so scammers are pretty common in not certified stores which means that you have to be protected against this kind of awful people.
The sad thing about this warranty system is that not every online store has it, so if you’re not planning to buy on very famous stores like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and you are going to shop on social media stores then it’s very possible to be scammed.
To avoid that awful experience, some measures are required before buying on any of these stores.
Shopping on High-Ranked Online Stores:
The best way to avoid any problem related to scammers or fake sellers is to simply use only famous online stores that have been in the business for a longer time than others and more importantly, they have a good reputation for delivering almost everything they offer in a perfect shape of form.
However, if for any reason you have any problem with your purchase, then don’t worry! Because stores like Amazon or eBay offer an impressive warranty in their products with the possibility of asking for a refund of the money that was invested.
Another motive to consider is the shipping, certified stores have incredibly fast shipping due to partnerships that they have with famous couriers like DHL or FedEx (in the case of Amazon) so, it’s pretty much possible to receive your stuff in a rank of 2-3 days or even less!
Indeed, we shouldn’t be bad with a small business that only wants to have a place in the market, however, this doesn’t mean that you can’t trust small or new stores! You just have to check for any trust-worthy review on the internet and more importantly for the number of followers, customers and likes if they have any social media page.
All of this is pretty much required to see if everything’s alright in their business, so, if you want to have a secured purchase then it’s better to everyone to just using the reliable high-ranked online stores that can be found in a lot of countries.
Before Shopping Check the Reviews:
Something good about the internet is all the reviews that you can find in blogs or websites about certain products or services by the hand of professionals in the topic. In many cases, those reviews consist of the description of the product to later describe all the pros and cons and finally a personal experience (if they have some of course).
In this way, you can check if the stuff you’re planning to purchase in the future is worth it or not, and more importantly if it’s safe to get it or not.
This is pretty much the same experience with online stores that you don’t have any idea, a good way of gaining to trust of unknown stores is by checking for positive reviews on the internet to see if everything is pretty much legit, however, you shouldn’t be satisfied with only one review, it’s more recommend to check more than 5 reviews.
Then, see the name of the person that reviewed the store and feel free to ask him or her some questions about the service in particular.
Use Spokeo for more Prevention:
Spokeo is an online service that consists of revealing information about unknown people to look if everything seems legal and if that person is recognized for being trustworthy in their business.
How Spokeo works is by inserting some basic information about the person which you want to investigate, the most used information is an active phone number, the next step will wait for a process called “phone number lookup” or “phone number search” in which the system of Spokeo will investigate for the owner of the phone number to later reveal personal information like name and email of the person in particular.
So, in simple terms, before buying in any online store that isn’t certified, you should use Spokeo to search if the store’s owner has any criminal records and more importantly to check on their social media page to see if everything is correct.
Never make Full Prepayments:
It’s very important to never waste any money in unknown online stores because it can end in a case of scamming, and you should know that one of the most common methods used by scammers is the full prepayment option which consists on paying a total amount of money for a product and later wait for the confirmation of the store to deliver the item to the customer, this sounds normal, right?
But how you’ll react if you were told that bad people configure their store’s website to never “approve” the transaction, making it as an error has occurred, but with a slight difference which is that you’re not going to see the money that was invested in your account again, and don’t even try to look for a refund because they are going to tell you lots of excuses that will lead to nothing, so, never use this type of transactions on stored that aren’t certified or that don’t have a good reputation.
Don’t Share your Payment Info as well as Passwords and Personal Data:
Privacy is always something good, so, it’s very important to keep safe every personal information about yourself like emails, passwords and more importantly, every payment information and bank accounts for the hand of bad people that can perform a lot of atrocious acts with that data.
In these actual days, stalkers have a lot of tools to catch their victims quickly, literally, they only have to search for a social media profile to start getting relevant information about a person in particular, and that can be you! So make sure that you never post personal things about yourself in pages that don’t have a good reputation or if it can’t guarantee the privacy of the information.
In the case of online stores, they’re going to ask you for some certain information like your email, password and even your location which is going to be very important for shipping purposes, everything sounds good overall right?
Maybe, in famous stores this can sound good, however, in dark sites where fake sellers and scammers are very abundant they can even blackmail you with that information, so be careful with that!
Maguire Haigh is a marketing manager for Spokeo. He is interested in the latest technology trends, marketing strategies and business development. He also prefers traveling, exploring the world and meeting new people. Maguire has great experience in creating and editing articles on different topics.