Know Your Rights as an Online Consumer
Shopping on the internet has become ever-popular, and is fantastic for the shopper - it’s made it very simple to shop. Moreover, a more competitive market matched with the cost-effectiveness with selling online has determined low selling prices for items.
Nonetheless, as the shopping market has widened, so too has the necessity to be cognisant of your rights as a consumer, and what to do if you are in receipt of items that don’t even turn up or faulty items. Data is made public online, such as the consumer protection act 1987.
Another consideration is what payment provider to use to buy something, as each payment provider has its own terms and conditions. . Knowing this type of information is the difference between getting a refund or being a victim of 419 scam.
Our word of advice is to do your homework about the vendor : do they show their phone number and postal address? What is the vendor’s returns policy? Their terms and conditions? Their privacy policy? All these enquiries must be resolved before you consider making a purchase from the vendor.
Another issue to think about: what are the methods of purchase? These days, it’s not enough to simply look for a Secure Socket Layer Certificate - this won’t inform you how they store your data, only how it’s transmitted when you make your purchase. If you have doubts, only purchase from vendors who use 3rd party payment gateways such as Google Checkout, PayPal, SagePay, NoChex and WorldPay.Also you can see what reputation the seller has with his payment gateway, e.g. check his PayPal account and how many orders have taken place on this particular account.
