There are still ten shopping days left until Christmas…plenty of time to do some last minute purchasing online. Shopping online is safer than ever but there is always a slight risk of identity theft or other fraud. In order to combat this problem, more and more companies are starting to offer secure credit card numbers just for online shopping. Let’s compare the options:
- Discover Card – Discover Card has a Secure Credit Card Number tool that cardholders can download and install on their computer. When you want to shop online, just click on this tool to instantly generate a secure, one-time credit card number.
- MBNA – MBNA‘s Shop Safe program also involves downloading software, but as an added bonus cardholders can also set time and amount limits to ensure that their one-time use credit card number isn’t misused.
- PayPal – You can use an online PayPal account as a secure gateway between your credit accounts and your online shopping. Online retailers see your PayPal account number instead of the actual credit card number that you are using for the purchase. This service is nice because it works with all kinds of credit cards, not just one brand.
- VISA – Instead of a disposable credit card number, VISA uses an online password system called Verified by Visa to help cardholders shop safer. Plus, no software to download!
The downside to these services is that they are usually fairly complicated to use. In fact, American Express and MSN have recently stopped offering these types of online shopping systems to customers. If you are shopping online without one of these masking programs, remember to use a credit card instead of a debit card, to look for the "https" in the URL and to monitor your account statements closely.
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