1. Acceptance
   - PayPal is widely accepted by a variety of merchants, and more and more of the merchants I buy from accept it.
   


2. Convenience
   - There is no credit card number to remember (or look up); I just need to remember my user id and password, which are typically easier to remember than a long string of digits.
   


3. Reputation
   - PayPal is recognized as a leader among reputable payer in the middle institutions. A payer in the middle is an organization that handles financial transactions for a buyer and a seller without revealing the buyer’s sensitive financial information to the seller.
   


4. Privacy
   - The merchant I buy from never sees any my sensitive financial information. PayPal is the only organization that has access to my financial information, and it transfers money to the merchant without revealing that information.
   


5. Control
   - Payments are only made if I specifically authorize them (assuming my password has not been compromised). With a credit card I have to reveal my account number to merchants; unfortunately, that number can be used to withdraw money from my account without my express consent. None of the PayPal information I give to a merchant can be used to take my money without my express consent. The vulnerable part of my account — my password — is never seen by the merchant.
   


6. Protection
   - Although there is not necessarily a guarantee that I won’t have to pay if I don’t receive merchandise that I purchased, there is a good chance that I will get a refund if the merchant never sends me anything. I had this happen once. Shortly after I bought an item from a merchant, the merchant closed their account on the auction site where I had bid. After being unable to contact the merchant, I opened a dispute with PayPal, and I eventually received a refund.
   


7. Documentation
   - Directly after I make payment through PayPal, I receive a receipt in my email. Additionally, the transaction shows up in my PayPal account. This immediately gives me two records of my payment, independent of anything the merchant may send to me.
   


8. Choices
   - PayPal gives me choices about how to pay. I can have money withdrawn from my bank account or I can use my major credit card. Further, if I want, I can keep some funds in my PayPal account to use for purchases. It’s all my choice.
   


9. Cost
   - PayPal is free to buyers. PayPal only collects a fee for each transaction from the merchant.
   

Despite all your best efforts to protect your financial information, it’s still possible that your information may fall into the wrong hands. This fact has given rise to a new identity protection service that takes agressive measures to protect your financial and personal information.

This increasingly popular service monitors your credit report on a regular basis and alerts you if anyone tries to open credit in your name. In addition, these types of services sometimes provide insurance to pay for losses you may experience as a result of theft of your identity. It’s a service I’ve not yet purchased, but I’m seriously considering doing so. It’s just another level of protection that I think will help ease my mind from the worry of online theft.

One of the primary organizations offering this new service is LifeLock. The CEO of this company is so confident in the effectiveness of their service that he freely shares his social security number with the world. That’s a startling vote of confidence for his company’s services.

Shop Online with Confidence

Every day of our lives we face risks of one sort or another. There is no way to eliminate all risks from our lives, including our online lives. However, using the steps described above, we can make the risk we take online manageable. Don’t let the fear of online financial risk keep rule your online activities. Use prudent action to limit your online risk and keep your online shopping safe.

<< Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 3)
 
 
 
 

Minimizing your After-the-Fact financial risk depends heavily on keeping your financial information as hidden as possible. Of course, that effort runs counter to the fact that you have to make your financial information availabe to someone to be able to make an online purchase. Fortunately, there’s a way to keep your financial information mostly hidden while still being able to make purchases.

A Trusted Payer in the Middle

A technique I really like to use for making payments is what I’ll call a “trusted payer in the middle”. With this technique, I give my financial information to an organization I trust and then have that organization make payments on my behalf. Probably the best known such organization is PayPal™.

With PayPal you establish an account where you provide your credit card information and optionally your bank account information. Then if you make a purchase from a merchant who accepts PayPal payments, the merchant gets paid without ever seeing any of your financial information. PayPal deducts the payment from your account and transfers it to the merchant’s account.

So in this arrangement the only organization I have to trust with my financial information is PayPal. The great part is that, unlike a credit card, no one can get money from my account without my specific authorization (this assumes that no one has gotten ahold of my PayPal password).

For example, ClickBank, the provider of most of the products here at Unique Christmas Gifts, accepts PayPal (in addition to other forms of payment). When you use PayPal to purchase from ClickBank, ClickBank “sees” none of your financial information. PayPal handles the transfer of funds without revealing your financial information to ClickBank.

Although this arrangement cannot prevent you from losing money for a single, specific purchase, it does create a great deal of protection from After-the-Fact risk.

But what can I do about merchants that don’t accept payments through a payer in the middle?

When You Can’t Use a Payer in the Middle

Unfortunately, in those circumstances where I can’t use a payer in the middle, I then have to use a credit card or make some other arrangement — perhaps sending a check through the mail. Inevitably I take more risk with this type of arrangement, because I end up sharing my financial information with the actual merchant (or perhaps the merchant’s billing partner).

In this case you have to rely more on correctly assessing the reputation of the merchant than you do with the payer in the middle arrangment. But here you may still have a high degree of protection from improper use of your financial information, if you use a credit card. At least one major credit card provides fraud protection for online purchases (subject to certain limitations). You can see one example of this kind of protection here.

So if I can’t use a payer in the middle, then I make sure I use my credit card for online purchases. I also follow many of these tips for making safe purchases using my credit card.

If an online merchant does not allow me to use a payer in the middle or a credit card, I probably will not do business with that merchant. I am very reluctant to give out my checking account information. In the wrong hands, giving out checking account information is practically like giving out a blank check.

<< Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 2)
                        Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 4) >>
 
 
 
 

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/….)

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.

<< Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 1)
                        Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself (page 3) >>
 
 
 
 

However, as our lives become and more intertwined with activites on the Internet, it will become increasingly hard to avoid all online financial transactions. Instead of avoiding the issue, why not take steps to protect yourself?

I’ll outline steps I take to limit my online risk. Following these steps are no guarantee that I’ll never lose money. But they greatly reduce the chances that I will lose significant amounts of money with my online activities.

To start it’s important to recognize two levels of risk:

1. My Immediate Purchase Risk - the risk that I will lose money with the transaction I am currently making.

2. My After-the-Fact Financial Risk - the risk that my financial information will be stolen and used subsequent to the transaction I am currently making, possibly repeatedly.

While both kinds of risk are important, the second can lead to far greater losses of money than the first. We’ll cover steps to avoid both kinds of losses, but you’ll want to be especially diligent about lowering your After-the-Fact financial risk.

Reducing My Immediate Purchase Risk

In making a purchase, the merchant’s reputation is everything. When I consider purchasing from an unfamiliar online merchant, I do my my best to establish that the merchant has a good reputation. Most legitimate retailers work hard to avoid cheating their customers, and their reputation will reflect that effort.

Reputation on Online Auctions

With online auctions, establishing a merchant’s reputation is usually pretty easy. Generally each seller will have a score indicating how well they’ve done in satisfying their customers. Don’t under estimate the value of this information. It’s very revealing. I usually make sure that the seller has been involved in a large number of transactions — no less than 30 — but a much higher number if I want to be really safe.

Further I read the feedback that the seller has received from their buyers. It’s important to take particular note of any neutral or negative comments. If the percentage of negative comments is greater than a couple percent, I will probably avoid this seller. Additionally, if the negative comment percentage is low, but there is a consistent theme of poor shipping performance or of buyers not receiving what they expected, I also will likely move on.

Reputation Through the Better Business Bureau

If the merchant is not selling through an auction, establishing it’s reputation takes more work. I’ll usually take a quick look at the Better Business Bureau web site for online businesses (http://www.bbbonline.org). It’s pretty rare to find an online merchant listed there, but if it is listed and it has poor performance, I immediately know to avoid it.

Further, if I can find the physical address of the business, I can use the main Better Business Bureau web site (http://welcome.bbb.org/) to find the local Better Business Bureau responsible for the merchant’s geographic area. Many times the local Better Business Bureau will have a listing for the online merchant.

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

You don’t need a hard-to-wrap gift, like the ones above, to make your gift wrapping special. Try one of these ideas just for extra fun. For these ideas, you can keep the real gift hidden until it’s time to give it to your loved one on Christmas, or you can wrap the real gift separately and place it under the tree.

- Record an audio announcement, similar to a radio announcer, describing the gift and all the wonderful things it can be used for. Then burn the announcement onto a CD and wrap it for placement under the tree.

- Create an invitation to a Christmas morning skit. Place the invitation in a Christmas card to put under the tree. Then have family members act out a short play that hints at what the present is.

- Create a short video displaying the gift. Have someone play the part of an announcer and have that person do something wacky to describe the gift — maybe “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” style. Then wrap the video and place it under the tree.

- Make a not-so-well-made “homemade” version of the real gift. Then wrap it and place it under the tree. After the recipient opens the “homemade” version and tries to act appreciative for the obviously poor effort, bring out the real gift. I did this one year for my son, and it was hilarious.

<< Gift Wrapping Ideas (page 2)
 
 
 
 

• Realize you can’t do it all. Nor — deep down — do you really want to. Because even if you could do it all, what would be the point if it’s nothing but a blur? The joy of Christmas only consists of those parts we can remember distinctly. Memories captured at high speed leave us with feelings of emptiness and regret. Enjoy more by doing less.


• Be willing to give up some of your must-do plans to protect the meaning of your absolutely-must-do plans. When expectations for a “perfect” Christmas run too high, it creates stress which can cause the whole structure of our Christmas plans to topple. Keep reasonable expectations and avoid the trap of having to capture the “perfect” Christmas. Experiencing a great Christmas with some rough edges is far better than hoping for but never reaching the “perfect” Christmas.


• Think outside the box. Treat Christmas as a multi-year event with several 11-month breaks in the middle. This can relieve the pressure to do everything this year. For example, one year could be the year you attend (or participate in) the choir performance at church. Next year could be the year for attending a Christmas theatrical production. The following year you could go caroling. Spreading activities over several years can relieve some of the pressure to squeeze a multitude of meaningful activites into a short span of 3 - 4 weeks.


• Help someone in need. Although the additional pressure of helping someone else at Christmas can add stress, you’ll feel good that you’ve done something beneficial and substantial for someone who really needs a hand.


• Stay manageable with your holiday preparations. Maybe your local supermarket can be the provider for “tastes-like-homemade” cookies. Perhaps you can take a more modest approach to your Christmas meal and “fancy it down.” Maybe a little less decorating will leave room for a little more fun.


• Don’t overdo the extravagence of your gift giving. It’s always a temptation to buy lots of gifts for those we most love. However, a boatload of “stuff” tempts the best of us to treat all our “stuff” with contempt. Concentrate on a smaller, more meaningful set of gifts, and leave more room for the recipients to enjoy them.

If you think back to your favorite Christmases, they probably were not your favorites because you got lots of stuff and did lots of activities. They were probably your favorites, because you received a gift or did an activity that underscored how much someone special loved you.

Experiencing a meaningful Christmas is like growing a flower. You can’t force a meaningful Christmas to grow any more than you can force a rose bush to bud and bloom. Instead you must prepare the ground of your Christmas season by creating an environment in which the flower of Christmas can bloom. If your ground is fertile and well-prepared, flowers of Christmas joy will flourish.

<< Maintaining Sanity Amidst the Crush of the Holidays (page 1)
 
 
 
 

Your children’s dance recitals, choir performances at the mall, fabulous renditions of Scrooge in “The Christmas Carol”, holiday parties at co-workers’ houses, the special program at church, helping the homeless, baking cookies for neighbors and friends, buying “exactly right” gifts for those you love, paying visits to friends and relatives you’ve neglected all year, decorating home and office with Christmas cheer, delivering meal fixings to the needy family down the street, making Christmas day dinner for a houseful of guests.

Phew! And the list goes on and …

This is not exactly a recipe for reflecing on and relishing the true meaning of the season.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the rush and miss what we all treasure at this time of the year — our relationships with family and friends and a chance to be thankful for the wonders and blessings of life.

Maintaining Sanity Amidst the Crush of the Holidays (page 2) >>
 
 
 
 

Try some of the following suggestions to make your gift giving special.

Oddly Shaped Gifts

Some gifts are a challenge to adequately wrap. To deal with one of those, why not give one of these ideas a try?

- Gift bags are a popular way to wrap an oddly shaped gift. Just place the gift in the bag and cover with brightly colored tissue paper.

- Put a large sheet of wrapping paper on the floor, design side down. Place the gift in the middle, and pull the four corners of the paper up and toward the middle. Close the top by tying the corners with a festive ribbon.

- Take some wrapping paper and use some tape to form a tube — design side out. Then tape one of the open ends closed, put your gift inside, and tape the other end. Or only tape one end and then slide the tube over the top of the present like a sock. You can just leave the open end resting on the floor.

Gifts Without a Physical Form

How do you wrap gifts like electronic books, downloaded software, or downloaded music. These ideas will give you something a little more tangible to put under the tree.

- Burn the files for the digital gift onto a CD. Alternatively, buy a thumb drive or memory stick and copy the digital files onto the memory device.

- Print the download instructions for the digital gift. Then purchase (or make) a Christmas card and include the printed instructions inside the card.

- Many digital gifts include a “digital book cover” or some other graphical image, either as the first page of the product (in the case of an ebook) or in the advertising used to sell the product. Print a copy of one or more of these graphical images. Then roll the paper into a “scroll” and tie a colorful ribbon around it to hold it closed.

Gift Wrapping Ideas (page 2) >>
 
 
 
 

The challenge with big gifts is where to store it. So how can you hide them and still put something under the tree?

Some merchants might provide storage for your gift until just before Christmas. Maybe your storage shed can serve as a good hiding spot. Or sign up to use your neighbor’s garage (hopefully there’s not a line of people with the same idea!).

Now that the gift is “safe”, “wrap it up” and put it under the tree with one of these fun ideas.

- Use a Christmas card (or make one either by hand or using your computer) and announce the gift inside the card.

- Use a card (as in the previous item), but announce in the card the recipient must play a game of search to find the present. Then use one of the following search games:

* Hot and Cold - Give temperature-related hints to lead the recipient to the gift. “Hotter” indicates movement toward the gift and “colder” indicates movement away from the gift.

* Footprints on the Floor - Cut out a bunch of footprints from construction paper. Starting from your Christmas tree, lay the footprints in a path that leads to the gift.

* Treasure Hunt - This game uses clues written on index cards which are hidden throughout your house. The first clue goes in the card. This clue gives a hint where the second clue is hidden, the second clue leads to the third, and so forth, until the last clue leads to the gift.

- Put a homemade gift certificate in a Christmas card. After the recipient opens the card, have another member of the family sneak off to bring the gift to the front door. The family member should ring the doorbell and pretend to be a delivery service coming to redeem the gift certificate.

- Wrap a small item to represent the gift and put it under the tree. Try to choose an item that hints at what the present is without immediately revealing the secret. For example, you might use a bike tire pump to represent a new bike, a car owner’s manual to represent a new car (I think most of us won’t be giving a gift this big), or a house key to represent a new house (this one requires some possession of sizable wealth).

<< Gift Wrapping Ideas (page 1) | Gift Wrapping Ideas (page 3) >>