Stay clear of scam during your Christmas shopping!
With the end of the year approaching, you are definitely going to make your Christmas shopping, or at least thinking about it seriously. Perhaps you’ve already found all or part of Christmas gifts for your relatives or will you do it at the very last moment?
If you think to buy your gifts online, do not wait anymore because you must not overlook the delivery time that can sometimes extend into this holiday season. But do not rush on the first Website! You should first check a few key elements to avoid scam as a Christmas gift.
Here are the precautions to take before making a purchase from an e-commerce site in order to prevent scam :
Beware of low prices!
On the Internet, competition is fierce between online shop and the prices are optimized, particularly during the Christmas period. Therefore, it is impossible that a website offers a product that is clearly cheaper than the competition. There can be 2 or 3% of difference but a 10% difference is more than suspect. This is perhaps a fraudulent site that displays low price in order to get a maximum of orders without delivering any.
Check terms and conditions of sale
First, if the website you have found has no legal terms and conditions of sale, flee! If the site has these pages, but written in barely comprehensible English, flee as well.
Check the e-commerce law of your country. Most of the time, mandatory information is to be given on a dedicated page. For instance, the company name, a company registration number, VAT number, a business mail address and a contact email address.
Do not order on sites whose name contains “cheap” or “discount”
If you are looking for a specific product, do not order on a website whose name is made up of the brand with the words “cheap” or “discount”. For instance, if you want a pair of Nike shoes, do not go on sites that would be called Nikecheap.com or Nikediscount.com
Check previous customer comments
Still have doubts? Another way to check the seriousness of an ecommerce site is to perform a research on a search engine. For example, you have found a site that would be called supersalesdiscountcheap.com (This site does not currently exist) but you have doubts. Type in Google “supersalesdiscountcheap.com”. The first line will be the website itself, but the next lines can be very interesting. If you come across a number of comments suggesting that this is a scam, go away.
If there are a lot of positive comments, it can also be a bad sign. People in charge of the website may have issued false positive ratings to embellish their popularity. In general, people leave opinions to express their disappointment, but not that much when they are satisfied with the service.
Enjoy the Christmas holidays and stay away from scam on the internet!