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Online shopping growth continues to defy gravity, with an estimated $1.7 billion spent on Cyber Monday last week — an 18% jump from 2012. And why not? Digital shoppers beat the crowds, never fight for parking, usually get the best prices, and often escape sales tax.
But if you’re going to be online shopping this holiday, that means you’re going to be slinging your data all around the Internet. You should understand the risks. It feels like every day, another major data breach is announced, with word of 2 million Facebook passwords being stolen just the latest bad news.
While making a calculated risk to shop online is fine, many consumers still don’t take simple common-sense precautions when using the Web, a new survey has found.
More than half said they would provide personal information that is not typically needed to complete a transaction, like a Social Security number, mother’s maiden name or birth date, according to a survey released today by Identity Theft 911.
The research — a telephone poll of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by market research firm gFk — also found that shoppers aren’t trusting their gut when making choices about sharing data.
Slightly more than half told researchers that they’d purchased something online from a site that they felt “was not secure.” And though 82% of online shoppers said they were very concerned about identity theft, 60% said they didn’t scan their credit card bills more carefully during the holiday season.
[Editor’s Note: If you’re worried about becoming an identity theft victim, an easy way to put your mind at ease is to monitor your credit. You can do this for free using the Credit Report Card, a tool that updates your credit scores monthly. A large change in your scores can signal possible identity theft.]
I’m not bashing online shopping; far from it. The benefits of online shopping, on the whole, outweigh the risks. In fact, using your credit card at a retail store or giving it to someone on the phone is at least as risky as using it online, if not more. Most retail stores will take your data and put it on a server that’s connected to the Internet anyway, and might broadcast it over wireless networks, too.
Fraud risks shouldn’t scare you away from online shopping. But just as you shouldn’t leave your purse or iPhone on the front seat of your car when you park at the mall, there’s several thing you can do to lower the odds that a Grinch might steal your holiday spirit and your identity.
Image: iStock
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