Online shopping security and safety considerations

Online Shopping Can Be Safe

There are definitely risks associated with online shopping. There have been many cases of hackers gaining access to shoppers' personal information. One case that just happened recently and has flooded the airwaves was Target who was hacked on December 18th, 2013. The company had over seventy million people with their names, home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers stolen and an additional forty million debit card credit card account information stolen as well (Malcolm, 2014).

Target, after acknowledging that as many as 110 million customers had personal information and card data stolen, said it would speed up its adoption of more secure payment technology. Suddenly, banks were being pressured to issue customers new cards with microchips, which have been used in Europe for more than 20 years. Congressional committees asked, with urgency, what more could be done (Malcolm, 2014).

Now many banks and retailers are trying to push for security chips to install in U.S. systems as well by next holiday system, October, 2015.

Although these major security breaches occur, online shopping is still relatively safe. Though hackers may have personal information from millions of users, there are other steps that must be taken before someone could actually be subject to fraud. Only a small fraction of people may actually have to deal with any negative consequences of the breech. Furthermore, there are many other steps that can be taken to protect yourself online and your online profiles. Another problem that online shoppers may encounter is the presence of fake reviews. This a trend that has been increasing as more and more shoppers have begun to use peer reviews for shopping decisions.

It is advised that consumers be skeptical of reviews that lack detail, or are too positive; social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp may provide a stronger, direct relationship to people's opinions (Garver, 2012). There are also many deceptive pricing schemes online that can lead consumers to believe that they are getting a discount or a bonus such as free shipping. However, such offers may only be good if certain hurdles are overcome and the details are often not published in an easily viewable location. There have also been many accounts of counterfeit goods sold on even fairly mainstream sites such as Amazon. Any company such as Amazon and Ebay that rely on third party vendors is subject to such scams.