Be careful when holiday shopping online

NEW YORK - With the holidays fast approaching, many consumers are going online to shop for seasonal decorations, festive foods and gifts for relatives and friends.

But just as there are dishonest brick-and-mortar retailers, so too are there disreputable Web merchants. There also have been rising reports of credit card fraud and identity theft to make consumers wary.

Experts say some simple precautions can make online shopping about as safe as a trip to the mall.

Houston lawyer Vincent I. Polley, who heads the American Bar Association's cyberspace law committee, said many of the same security rules apply online as well as off.

His advice: "Shop with merchants you know. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And don't give out any information online that you wouldn't give to a retail clerk in a store."

Consumers should be especially careful in dealing with holiday offers e-mailed to them, Polley said. That's because of the big increase in "phishing," a scam in which con artists send out millions of e-mails trying to get unsuspecting consumers to divulge personal information that thieves can use.

"When I shop... I never do anything off an e-mail I've gotten," Polley said. "I go looking for what I want and don't get pushed to some site."

Instead of clicking on a Web link inside an unsolicited e-mail, consumers always should type the name of the site they want in their browser address window "to make sure you get where you want to go." Polley said.

A number of groups such as the ABA have stepped up consumer education efforts - the ABA maintains the site www.safeshopping.org with computer security tips - because online shopping has increased so dramatically.

Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based Internet research company, estimates that online holiday retail sales, including travel, will increase 20 percent to $13.2 billion this year following a 31 percent rise in 2003.

Janice Frankle, an attorney in the enforcement division of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., noted that several years ago, one of the most common problems consumers faced was late shipping, though most online retailers have greatly improved their delivery systems.

Still, she said, consumers should read shipping information on online sites carefully to ensure that packages will arrive when needed.

"They should also check the retailer's refund and return policies," Frankle said. "If it's not clearly spelled out, don't buy."

Before paying, consumers should check to make sure they're on a secure site, identified by a lock icon on the browser's status bar or a Web address that starts with "https."

Frankle also recommends consumers make their purchases online with credit cards, rather than debit cards or checks, because credit card transactions have special federal protections.

"If you charge something and you don't get the goods or they're defective, you can withhold payment by contacting your card company," she said. "Then the card company must investigate."

She also noted that under federal rules, if a credit card is misused, consumers are liable for a maximum of $50 if they've notified the card company promptly of any problems. Some card companies promise similar protections for debit card users, but these are not federally mandated.

Consumers should print out receipts of their purchases so they can document purchases is something goes wrong, Frankle said.

The FTC offers online shopping tips at it's Web site, www.ftc.gov.

Steve Salter, director of the Better Business Bureau's BBBOnline reliability program, said that if consumers have concerns about brick and mortar retailers or online merchants, they can contact their local Better Business Bureau for guidance.

To make it easier for consumers to identify online merchants they can trust, the organization issues BBBOnline reliability seals to companies that agree to abide by a code of ethical business practices, pledge accuracy in advertising and display full disclosures about their location, warranties and guarantees, and shipping and return policies.

So far, some 19,000 online merchants in the United States and Canada have qualified to display the seal, said Salter. The program's site, www.bbbonline.org, has a list of all the companies that have reliability seals.

Salter said one scam that often pops up at holiday time is retailers offering especially popular toys that are scarce.

"A few years ago, when X-Box (video game consoles) first came out, demand was very high," he recalled. "A company in Canada offering low prices via bulk e-mail got thousands of orders on its Web site. But they didn't have any X-Boxes."