buying on the internet

[Lez]

some of you may be old hands at buying items off the internet. I am a bit of dinosaur when it comes to this but 3 purchases have made me think a little differently. I was told to use a secure site and do this and that. I still like to deal with pound notes. However two companies I have dealt with have been brilliant and gave a better deal than my local garden centre. Amazon for a book and two deals with garden superstore. they were both good and the garden superstore I found excellent. they have been reliable and let me know every step of the way how my order was progressing. well worth a look and if anyone recomends any other company that can be trusted ( I am a wary devil) please let every one know and reward these trusted people. when I sent a message to the garden supertsore (in andover I believe) to say how pleased with thier I was they took the time to send back a message of thanks. you don't get that in some garden centres as it seems to much trouble to help sometimes. I would be pleased to of other peoples experiences with internet and praise the good and let us know the not so good so they can be avoided. good luck all.

[2dogs]

hi lez
what you could do is open a seperate account for internet purchases with your bank
only put enough money in the account for what you need.
that way, if your details get into the hands of the wrong people
they only get whats in that account, and not you main one.
having said all that, internet shopping is pretty safe.
follow the advice you got about secure sites.

[heskie]

My wife and I buy loads of stuff on the Internet and have never had a single problem, I'm a wary devil too though. I often use Google shopping to find products and prices, then armed with that information use established sites, like you did with Amazon for example, to make the purchase, even though Google Shopping may have thrown up a cheaper alternative, but maybe through a company I have never heard of. It can be useful to do a search about a company trading on the internet on sites like reviewcentre, or just type into Google search the name of the company and then browse through looking for other people's experiences. I use PayPal for many purchases, not just when buying on ebay. Be very careful about emails you get, if anything looks too good to be true, let your wary devil tell you: it is!
I buy a lot of my stuff for the garden from the Organic Gardening Catalogue
Finally, I use AVG as my anti-virus and it includes a websafe facility, other antivirus programs may have something similar, which puts up a green tick against search results if a website contains no threats (that is not to say they may not be rubbish traders of course!)

[Gardening]

Always use paypal and ofcource virtual credit cards. Virtual credit cards will be useful to pay unsecured sites, since your correct card number will not be revealed online. Paypal is the best way to purchase online always.

[MarkOlliethe2nd]

Being only 26 I have spent much of my life buying online and hate shopping in-store. I mean why would you want to queue for ages then be served by a unhelpfull, snotty, grumpy greasy haired sales assistant that offers no customer service.
One of my jobs is as a mystery shopper, being self employed I work on a daily basis for 5 companies and although not all outlets offer bad customer service I still think the way of the future is online.

One thing I look for when shopping online is, when entering personal information such as name and address or login information if I have an account and even Credit/debit card details is the address bar will turn from

http://

to

https://



This apparently states the page displayed where you are about to enter sensitive information is secure, although some sites this is not the case and can still be secure/genuine sites but I guess entering sensitive information is at your own risk. Also looking for the gold padlock on a webpage can indicate a secure website.


some online stores use Pay Pal as there merchant tool or World Pay which offer buyer protection and are good payment methods that offer you buyer protection.





The only thing I do not buy online is food.
I have also after 5 years stopped using ebay, it has become so expensive and now bidding on items, can sometimes be bid up by the seller with another account or by his or her friends. Items used to be so cheap on ebay, but I have started to find they are cheaper on other online stores or in the store themselves.

I used to shop on Amazon, but just the other week I signed into my amazon account looking for Michael Jackson DVD's and found that now amazon is almost like ebay where they have sellers distributing the goods and a MJ dvd new was selling at £12.99 plus postage, I signed into my account on HMV and found the DVD for £4.99 and FREE postage just goes to show ***Shop Around***

Needless to say never send you Credit card details to even a known company by email. I had a card that had expired in my Hilton Hotel account, and the hotel emailed me directly asking me to send my new credit card details by email (I didnt, I updated via my online account) they think Im stupid...lol

[MarkOlliethe2nd]

Also just thought I would add, if you buy something fragile or even a normal heavy item and it is sent by courier, if the packaging is damaged on arrival do not sign for it.
I recently learnt that the packaging was damaged and when opened so was the item. There was then a battle for a few months as this was at the fault of the courier, BUT, signing his form on arrival also meant I was signing to say I was in a way ok with the state of the item on arrival, and signing meant the company I bought the item from could not claim for the damage and then refund me. They did refund me in the end as a goodwill gesture as they didnt have to, but they didnt get anything back from the courier as I signed to say I accepted the condition of the item.

If packaging is damaged on arrival you can request to open it and check the contents are ok before siging.

If the courier refuses to wait while you open the item then tell him to take it back or (I guess run the risk and hope the contents are ok)

If badly damaged refuse to sign and the courier will send back to the sender.