Know Before You Buy – a consumer guide to making smart purchases onlines

Did you know that in 2004, there were 207,449 complaints filed online with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). That number represents a 66.6% increase from the number of complaints filed in 2003. Total dollar loss was $68.14 million. In actuality, the total number of fraud complaints and losses are much greater than 207,449 and $68.14 million, respectively, because this number only represents complaints filed with one agency.

Top 10 states where the domestic perpetrators reside in according to the IC3 2004 Internet Fraud - Crime Report: 

1. California

2. New York

3. Florida

4. Texas

5. Illinois

6. Ohio

7. Pennsylvania

8. Georgia

9. New Jersey

10. Arizona

This article is not intended to scare people off the Internet or deter anyone from making a purchase on the Internet. It is intended as a friendly reminder for consumers to shop smarter on the Internet and not end up as a statistics.

Let’s face it, Internet is a great place to shop. Prices at online stores are generally much better than those found in brick and mortar stores. Internet also offers an unprecedented amount of convenience for shoppers. You can shop 24/7. However, Internet frauds are on the rise as can be seen from the above statistics. So it is imperative to arm yourself with knowledge that can guard against crooks on the Internet and not fall victim to their criminal activities.

www.DiscountWatchStore.com is committed to doing what we can to help fight Internet frauds because Internet frauds also cost merchants a lot of money each year. In 2004, merchants lost $2.6 billion from online payment frauds. That is why we have put together the following “Know Before You Buy Tips” to help you shop smarter and enjoy the wonderful benefits that Internet stores have to offer.

Know Before You Buy Tips 

• Know the company that you are dealing with. Find out as much as possible about the company. The first place to start is the company’s website. Legitimate vendors generally provide a lot of information about their companies, who they are and what they do. Check with third party sources and agencies such as the Better Business Bureau.
  

• Know the contact information of the seller. Make sure the company has a phone number (preferably a toll free number), a working email address, and a physical address. PO Boxes are not a good sign. Many website owners are aware of this so they try to trick the consumers by using UPS Store mailboxes or similar services and using the UPS Store address as their business address. This is a very devious way of conducting business and these companies should be avoided. An easy way to find out whether or not the address that is provided on a website is actually an UPS Store address is by click on the following link

http://go.mappoint.net/ups/PrxInput.aspx

and putting in the zip code from the address found on the seller’s site and see if that address matches any of the UPS Store address in that area. If you have a match, then the suite number and the unit number that is provided by the company is nothing more than a mail box number.