1 in 10 Conned by On-line Sales

One in ten people buying for music or sporting events have been conned, according to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK.

This is a story that we picked up from the BBC website here.

In this story, a girl, Lyndsey Wienand tells how she splashed out nearly £300 on tickets to a Madonna concert.

The problem here is that there are many people out there who are able to design websites and put them up at a reasonable cost and make them look professional. Don’t assume that just because a website looks nice, that it is indeed legitimate.

Remember that nowadays with PayPal, it can be relatively easy to apply a shopping cart to your site.

This is what we recommend:

1. Do a search on the domain name and company name to see if there are lots of complaints out there
2. Although complaints may send warning signs, don’t assume that a lack of complaints means that the company is safe – it is possible that they’ve only just set-up
3. Look out for important parts of a e-commerce retailer and read them carefully: refund and returns policy; delivery information; contact numbers and addresses
4. If you have the no-how then try to find how long the domain has been owned by – popular domain sellers like GoDaddy provide this information for free.
5. Don’t assume that just because the site is using a popular payment gateway (eg PayPal) that the website is legitimate.
6. A lot of countries credit card policies mean that you are covered for purchases over a certain amount. For example, I believe that if you purchase anything over £100 on a credit card in the UK, you will be insured for fraudulent activity. If so, try to use your credit card (not a debit card) to make your purchase.
7. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is! If this website is selling front row tickets to a concert that is already sold out, then alarm bells should ring!