Hawking in a winter wonderland

On this 2^nd day of Consumer Protection, it’s all about online shopping. Because that’s what we can do this year, right? (OK, it’s a lot of what we do any year.)

If you’re spending some of your hard-earned money online, make sure you know where it’s going. Because it’s pretty easy for scammers to put up a fake website that looks a lot like a real one. A scam website may show up in your search results, or scammers may send you a phishing email that looks like it came from a company you trust, but actually takes you to a rip-off site. They’ll be happy to take your money and leave you with nothing. So:

• Instead of clicking on a link, say in an email, type in the store’s URL yourself, so you know where you’re headed.

• Only pay on sites with URLs that starts with https. That ‘s’ means your transaction is encrypted…but scammers know how to encrypt, too. So don’t believe that a site is the real deal just because the site uses encryption.

• Pay by credit card. It gives you way more protections if something goes wrong.

• Check out more about how to shop safely online.

And if you spot a scammy site or you don’t get what you ordered, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.