Online shopping tips

Use a credit card instead of a debit card

Credit cards can be the safer choice for online shopping—if someone manages to intercept your financial information online, they can do less damage and you have more recourse than if you’d used a debit card. This is for two reasons:

• Credit cards have spending limits, while debit cards—which are directly linked to your bank account—do not.
• You can dispute fraudulent charges made to a credit card without being out-of-pocket the amount in dispute, but money withdrawn directly from your checking account by a debit card is much more difficult to recover.

Consider using a credit card with a low credit limit specifically for your online purchases. And some banks now offer “one-time use” or “virtual” credit cards that are designed specifically for online shopping—these are good only for one transaction from a specific vendor.