Now I have a reason

I have mentioned this before. But it needs to be said again. If you like to shop online, find a way to do it safely. My recommendation? PayPal plug-in. I used it for a while and I loved it, but then I upgraded to the newest version of Firefox and it wasn’t available. So I just started shopping the old fashioned way, using my debit card wherever I was buying.

The PayPal plug-in puts a P on your toolbar at the top of your screen. When you start to check out in any shop PayPal drops down a box so you can check out with PayPal. Even if it’s a site that does not have the PayPal option normally. But what PayPal does is every time you use this plug-in it generates a virtual credit card number which is tied to the financial information you have supplied only to PayPal. So if you buy things from 10 stores – generally only 1 or 2 will regularly give you the option to use PayPal. If you have the plug-in, you can use it at every one of those sites. And PayPal is reputable and I trust them.

If you have a PayPal account I would suggest signing in and downloading the plug-in. It now works in the newest version of Firefox and IE. It will save receipts for you and everything, it’s really useful. Keep the records of your purchases all in one place, great, huh?

So why am I suggesting this? Because some slimy bottom feeder made a feeble attempt to rip me off. These crooks out there get your credit or debit card info and try it out by sending a tiny charge to it. Like say .90 cents for pizza at 3:00am. If the charge goes through they know they can hunker down and start shopping for what they really want. Luckily the little charge they sent to my card had already been flagged as fraudulent so when it hit my card it sent up red flags. My card was immediately turned off and a message was left on my answering machine at home. Unfortunately I didn’t get the phone message until I had my card denied at the grocery store on my way home from work, and luckily had one, count ‘em one check in my purse to pay for my groceries!

So now I am being issued a new card. Pain. In. The. Butt. But better than having to deal with a bunch of charges and the mess that would have caused. So tonight I went back to PayPal to download the plug-in and found that it WAS available for Firefox now, so you’re looking at (uh .. reading) a happy gal now. No excuses not to be safe. For me anyway.

Practice safe shopping, people! It’s for your own good. Really