With online credit card fraud on the rise, Stay Smart Online Week presents a good opportunity to rethink your online shopping habits.
Australians are spending more than ever on their cards, particularly online, so it's little surprise that credit card fraud is booming. "Card-not-present" fraud – where you're using your card online or over the phone rather than at the counter – has almost tripled in five years according to the Australian Payments Clearing Association. Almost two-thirds of these fraudulent transactions occur overseas, which the APCA chalks up to sophisticated malware and phishing attacks along with large-scale data breaches.
![Keep your credit card details safe when shopping online.](/web/20161020183538im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/j/x/j/a/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs0ajp.png/1476232584459.jpg)
Taking care when revealing your email address online is one way to protect yourself against scammers, but it's also important to play it safe when using your credit card online. The more organised amongst us have already started their online Christmas shopping, while others like to leave it to the last minute – but don't take silly risks in your rush to pick up a bargain.
Just like using email aliases to throw scammers off the track, one security option is to use a separate pre-paid debit card when shopping online. You can buy them at the post office or a supermarket and it's easy to top them up online, transferring just enough money to cover your recent purchases.
This way if those card details are compromised scammers can't rack up thousands of dollars on your primary credit card. Even if your bank offers fraud protection for your credit card, you can still be left out of pocket during the dispute resolution process. Replacing that pre-paid card is also less hassle than getting a new primary credit card and needing to change all your regular direct debits, such as your utility bills.
One trade-off when using a pre-paid card is that you might lose some of the extra buyer protections offered by your bank, so you might not want to use it for some expensive transactions. Alternatively you might link your pre-paid card to a third-party service, like PayPal or Amazon Payments, which offers buyer protections and shields your credit card details from retailers.
Of course prevention is the best cure and the key to protecting your credit card details is to get into good online shopping habits, such as checking that supposedly secure websites start with https rather than http, says finder.com.au's money expert Bessie Hassan.
"You should also be looking for the padlock icon before the address bar in your browser, which means the site is encrypted," Hassan says. "Also avoid making online transactions from public computers, internet cafes and whilst connected to free Wi-Fi – scammers are smart and prey on these services."
If you suspect you're the victim of credit card fraud, it's important to contact your bank immediately.
"It can take up to 40 days for banks to return funds to victims of fraudulent transactions, so the sooner your bank starts the investigation the sooner you'll get your money back," Hassan says.
"You should also report the scam to the relevant government agency. While you'll be frustrated with your own situation, unreported scams can spread and entrap other people in our community."
Have you had your credit card details compromised? What are your tricks for staying safe online?
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