Internet Payment
-Is it safe?

However, all reports and investigations performed have shown that the Internet today is a safe place to do shopping: Scams are rare, and even better: Credit card companies are responsible for eventual misuse of credit cards.

In my opinion, Internet payment by using credit cards is even safer than giving your credit card to a waiter in a restaurant anywhere.

Remember, a company that is selling its goods on the Net, will be put immediately out of business if its customer's credit card is misused in connection with an Internet Payment in any way: No company will risk its business like that.

For example, I use a company called ClickBank for my customer payments: It has functioned flawlessly for more than two years; not one single problem reported. Refunds, rare as they are, have also worked perfectly.

I'll show you how such a process is functioning:

A customer clicks on the product (let's say an eBook) that she wants to buy, or a "Buy" button for the product:

Behind the product icon or Buy button is a link to (in this example) ClickBank, which tells them (their computer) which product it is. ClickBank first asks the customer to specify which country she is shopping from:

Next step is to enter information about yourself and your credit card. Notice that ClicBank has added taxes as appropriate for the country you are in. Seems we never get away from taxes, do we?

That's all there's to it: When your credit card has been validated, you are sent right to the product page, where you can download the eBook and start reading it! And THAT is a much better experience than having to wait for a mail parcel, isn't it? The speed of the Internet is delivering your paid-for goods directly to your computer instantly:

This is definitely the future way of shopping information products. All made possible with today's technology for secure Internet payment.

However, if you want to order hard goods, the shipping element comes into effect, but also here, the Internet is speeding up things: Imagine you want to send a toy to your grandchild: You simply look up the best Internet toy shop for your specific need, choose what you want, specify your grandchild's home address as the delivery address, pay with your credit card, and that's it: You are done!

Now, I want you to pay attention to the URL (address) in the upper left corner in the two above images: I have a copy of them here:

In the first image, you see that the URL starts with "http://". This is an ordinary start for an Internet address. The second one, however, starts with "https://".

What's the difference?

Well, http means HyperTextTransferProtocol, while https means Secure. This is Internet speak for that this location is secured; information sendt from there is encrypted (coded) so noone else can pick it up.

In the first screen, ClickBank is just asking for country information: That can hardly be regarded as sensitive information. However, when moving to screen two, business starts, and ClickBank therefore goes into "secure mode" for your (and their own!) safety.

Lesson: If you are in an https place, it is safe to use your credit card!

Here is another example from a legitimate business:

That's nice: I use CafePress to run my own Attitude Giftshop: If they ever try to fraud anyone, their business (which is totally Internet based) will be shut down immediately: End of business! This is how it works; Every shopkeeper on the Internet has to play by the rules, even more so than your restaurant at the corner.

What is not safe, is to send credit card information in an ordinary email, or from an ordinary http place. Never do that: Look for the https start, and you won't have any problems. Be also very critical to emails that ask you to visit some place for "updating your credit card information": It is almost certainly a scam. While I was writing this, I received the following email:

What nonsense! I know that this is an attempt to get my credit card number: This has been going on for several months: It is an attempt to swindle you in the name of PayPal, a world-known electronic payment company. I happen to be a PayPal user, actually, but this email is a so-called spam, sent to millions, whether they use PayPal or not: many do, and some of them will bite, unfortunately. After having read this, you won't.

Internet Payment is a great way of doing shopping: If it is information products like eBooks, software, etc., it is instantly downloadable when payment has been cleared;

If it is hard goods, you can order products from around the world and have it delivered to your (or your grandchild's) door without leaving your home. Just look for the "https" thing before you whip up your credit card for your first Internet Payment experience...

A final tip

Get yourself a new account, with a separate credit card; each time you want to buy something on the Internet, transfer the actual amount to that account first (or have a fixed limit of, say, 1.000$ for the card), and then use that credit card to pay with: That way, you will never expose your ordinary account to Internet payments. That will let you rest assured.

Since we have been talking about eBooks here: What is an eBook, anyway?

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