Website Fraud
Website fraud is an illicit means of making money from merchants and not supplying the goods in return for the payments made. This is an ever-increasing threat for online buyers who need to protect themselves from falling prey to such activity. These are typically criminal activities that are carried out by using features that the Net offers to make illegal transactions from innocent users. It is a theft in every sense of the term except that they can be carried out with a simple desktop. Websites, chat zones and emails are most commonly used to commit fraud and such acts can be executed anywhere in the world. The victim can be either a lone individual or even a group of investors. An outcome of this has been a loss of face for many reputed legal companies who have lost both money and clients in the process.
Ways to avoid being a victim of website scams
- People should be aware that such cybercriminals can actually create very professional looking websites and sell goods and services at much lower and attractive rates than others in an attempt to woo their customers.
- Those who are actually legal sellers will always include company contact details in their websites that can be checked by the buyers. Such companies do not on principle solicit credit card details and bank information like the PIN or password code. These sellers normally offer a secure financial way of purchasing goods online and carry the VeriSign logo.
- Credit card fraud has been the most rampant with a large number of customers using their credit cards to make online purchases. This huge setback in e-commerce has now made customers wary of the Internet and even the most sophisticated equipment for fraud detection has failed to completely eradicate this phenomenon. As a consumer one should be careful not to disclose sensitive personal data to unsolicited emails requesting for such information.
- It is always better to refrain from replying to emails sent by travel agencies offering travel packages at throwaway prices. This will only serve to incite these miscreants to keep sending spam mails to that user account.
A website fraud checker is often employed to verify the authenticity of features provided by a website.