Fraud alert! Black friday can make you a victim of identity theft!

It’s just about time for all of us to jump into the Black Friday shopping festival. People will get all busy with their credit cards, debit cards, stacked up savings, and so on.

Some might shout out that Walmart’s throwing up the best deal, while the others might argue that this year Target’s having the best offers on electronics. Things will carry on like this… Ultimately all shops are out there to make a profit, while we fight and debate over the discounts they offer!

But, in the middle of it all, there are these fraudsters!

They are just waiting for the right opportunity to clone your personal and financial details, as you swipe your cards at this store and that… or use them on this website and that!

Online fraudulent activities, identity theft, credit/debit card cloning, and multiple uses of a single transaction ID, have increased significantly over the past years.

So,

Here are some points you need to keep in mind as you go shopping on black friday:

a. Start shopping afresh, by clearing all your existing credit card debts

Needless to say, it’s always better to enter a shopping spree with a clean slate on your credit card. This way you can easily keep track of your new oncoming balances.

Now, the choice is completely up to you, whether or not you would first like to clear your existing balances and then go shopping.

However, it is highly suggested to pay off your credit card debts. Else your balance will get accumulated one upon the other, and the overall interest on those balances will increase. Moreover, the longer is your balance list, the more space will be there for fraud charges and fake transactions to fit in!

And, they all can go unnoticed if your billing or transaction list gets crowded.

b. While doing a transaction online, don’t refresh until the process is completed

This is a very important advice.

The time between a ‘transaction requested’ and a ‘transaction completed’ is highly fragile and the security wall of the webpage is made tighter than usual, at that time.

Why so? You might ask!

Well, hackers and information cloners just wait to steal the data exchanged between the consumer and the website during the time of a transaction.

So, when a transaction is taking time, it could be due to many reasons. It could either be due to a slow internet connection, or say the website is taking time to encrypt your ‘sent information’ for security reasons.

Whatever it is, you should never exit a transaction page in the midway!! Many things can happen if you do so.

Your money can get deducted without the purchase being completed, and then you will have to wait for a refund.

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Or the information you entered, might also get stolen, and at the end of the day, you might become a victim of identity theft.

And trust me, due to the huge rush that goes on black friday, your case might just be counted as another next door internet massacre!

c. Try to use only one credit card both at stores and online

Because of so many transactions you might possibly do at different stores and online shopping portals, it’s important to use only one card!

This way, if you feel that your card information is getting hacked or used by a fake third party, then you can easily dispute your credit card charges based on the irrelevant transaction history!

The same dispute process will get more difficult if you have 2 or 3 cards to dispute.

So, be wise and mess with only one card.

Now again,

some of you might ask, that whether or not you all should use your debit cards for transactions:

The answer from our end will forever be ‘no’!

See, debit cards are good, no doubt in that, but only for selected transactions. So, wherever you have an option to pay with a credit card, always do so!

Remember that debit card is linked to your personal bank account. A little security breach can give hackers, credit card skimmers, and information cloners an easy access to your account, that contains your money and all other important personal data!

However, with a credit card, stealing personal details is difficult for breachers, than with a debit card.

This post is not at all meant to scare you. It is to make you wiser.

Only keep in mind, that in the end, we want your safety! So, be intelligent, and have a safe black Friday shopping expedition!