Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 2)

Reputation Through Review Sites

Assuming I find no red flags from my Better Business Bureau search, I next try to find other web sites that refer to the merchant. One way I do this is to do a Web search on Google or Yahoo. I type in the business's name and the word "review". Many times a Web page will come up that talks about the merchant, and it will give me valuable clues about the merchant's reputation.

Be careful with reviews, though. Sometimes the review you find may be a thinly disguised advertisement by an affiliate selling products for the merchant. If the review gives no negative comments, it's probably an advertisement that you should disregard.

The best review pages you can find are ones where consumers are allowed to write their own reviews about the merchant. If you find a site like this, you've found gold. These are very valuable and can easily help you size up whether or not to trust the merchant.

Reputation Through Known Sites

Another things that establishes a merchant's good reputation is if I find references to the merchant's Web site from other Web sites I trust.

For example, when I was involved with fencing (the sporting event, not the "surround a person's yard" activity), I sometimes visited the Web site for American Fencers. They had links to a number of merchants who sold fencing equipment. I figured any of the sites listed there were very likely to be legitimate sellers of fencing equipment.

If everything checks out, then I usually make the purchase.

Affiliate Sites Need A Different Approach

Some sites will appear to sell products or services, but the owner of that site will not be the actual provider of the product or service. Instead the site will be part of an affiliate arrangement with the actual provider. In this arrangement the owner of the site gets a commission for referrals to the actual provider if a purchase is made.

With affiliate arrangements the reputation of the actual provider is paramount, not the reputation of the intermediate site.

For example, this site, Unique Christmas Gifts, is an affiliate site. Most of the products showcased here are provided by ClickBank. So the reputation of ClickBank is your primary concern for products they provide. (The easiest way to be sure your purchase is going through ClickBank is when you get to their "Secure Payment Form" on their payment page. On this page the Web address in your browser will begin with something like https://ssl.clickbank.net/....)

You can review the report that the Better Business Bureau in Boise, Idaho has for ClickBank.

Measured Risk

That's not the whole story, though. I take different amounts of risk with different purchases. It all depends on what the product is and how easy it is to find it for sale. It also depends on the price.

If the product is very specialized or hard to find, I'll usually take a greater chance that the merchant may not be legitimate. Also, if the price I'm having to pay is low, I'm usually willing to run the risk that I might lose that money.

If you really need an item that's hard to find, or if you can afford the possibility of losing a little money, it might be worth your while to take a chance on a merchant. Even though this strategy might result in a rare online loss of money, the benefits of online shopping far outweigh the risk.

But you can only take this kind of risk if you jealously protect your After-the-Fact financial risk.

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