BooksForMTs

We've all heard the Internet credit card horror stories. There is no doubt that some of them are true and well deserved. However, some of them are most certainly made out to be worse than they were and as such border on fear-mongering.

If you use a credit card on a secure page to pay for your online purchase, the chances of anyone ever getting your card number are "slim-to-none."

If, by some bizarre chance it ever does happen, most sites offer you a guarantee, like Amazon.com's "Safe Shopping Guarantee" which protects you while you shop their site, so you never have to be concerned about credit card safety. They guarantee that every transaction you make at Amazon.com will be 100% safe. Barnes & Noble have a similar policy. This means you pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to your card as a result of shopping at their web sites.

The safety rule for using your credit card or other means of payment on the Internet is very simple: If the order is not being placed from a secure page, don't buy from that seller.

To verify that a site is secure and authenticated, look for the following:

• The difference in URL.
  URLs for secure pages being with "https" instead of the standard "http."
• Your browser's secure connection indicators.
  Netscape Navigator:
  Shows a solid blue line at the top of the page and a connected key in the lower left corner.
  Microsoft's Internet Explorer:
  Shows a padlock in the lower right corner.
  Other browsers:
  Have similar visual cues.
• The site's certificate.
  Verify that a site is authenticated by looking at the site's certificate from your web browser.
  Netscape Navigator browser:
  Select "Document Info" from the "View" menu.
  Microsoft Internet Explorer browser:
  Select "Properties" from the "File" menu, and then select the "Security" or "Certificates" tab.

If you are still worried, in spite of all that has been said, then just pay for the goods you have chosen by giving your card number over your phone to the company selling the product. You should be advised though, that a telephone conversation, technically, is not even as safe as an Internet secure server connection.