How to Avoid Online Fraudsters

Hi. Several months have past before I realised that there was no single entry posted since the last one back in May. Hahaha, out of all sudden I became too lazy to write entries perhaps due to lack of idea of what to write on. So this time I will post a story of what I know well, a continuation to what I had written several months ago about online shopping. As what I can see, online shopping has slowly becoming a 'trend' among Malaysian students in New Zealand primarily due to a tight monthly budget. Some settled with second hand guitar they could grab for a fairly cheap price through TradeMe hoping to revive their boy-band era and some are desperate enough to get a hand of Thermo-Fluid text book that was sold out at the university's book shop to prepare for the weekly test. Whatever the reasons might be, we are getting accustomed dealing with a stranger we totally have no idea who he or she is thousands miles away say in Oklahoma or may be that someone is our not-so-friendly neighbour living next door. While it is true the power of internet made trading world revolves around us it does in fact comes with some fatal drawbacks. Threats to the personal securities are becoming a growing concern while traders are exposed to scams and frauds. Two weeks ago,there was a news in Auckland about a girl who lost all of her money in her bank account and it was believed that her personal information was stolen while she is making online transaction. I myself had experiences where my money was stolen from my online 'bank' and my account was froze twice because it was believed to be accessed by an unauthorised person. Luckily enough I had the money refunded though the mastermind was undetected up until now. Having those not-so-convenient experiences, here I lay out three tips to avoid such cases to ever happen to you. They are very simple, as simple as 1-2-3. So keep them in mind always :

1. KEEP YOUR PC SPYWARE-FREE

Never download and install any file from unknown sources as it may contains spyware where sensitive information like your banking passwords can be read by the fraudster. Have your pc scanned by Mr. Norton or whatever Mr. Anti-Virus you have as regularly as possible.

2. NEVER SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

Please do not share your username or password to someone else. If possible, avoid using someone else's' or public computers to access your sensitive account. Accept the fact that not everyone is at least as good and honest as me. Even if they are honest, you don't know if their computers are free from those creepy spywares.

3. DON'T BE LAZY

What I mean by lazy is you are using the same username/email and password for everything, from your banking account to registering a gossip forum. Remember the forum administrators have access to your personal information, if they happen to be 'naughty' chances are they might be using your information to access your banking account. Do not risk yourself, use separate passwords for your banking accounts.

***UPDATE****

I forgot to mention on more important step that is BEWARE OF PISHING SITE. Phising, came from word 'fishing' means to deceive someone to enter their username and password in a 'clone' banking account. Usually they'll send you an email trying to convince you to enter you information through a provided link. Ignore such emails, your authorised banks/merchant site will NEVER ask for any password.