With over two decades of experience, Niranjan masters the art of managing varied aspects including business, proudcts/services, operations, risk & fraud management and others.

Online shopping has completely revolutionised the way we select and order merchandise as compared with in-store shopping experience. Who wants to jostle with people in crowds, drive into a shopping mall to buy certain products that are easily available at online merchants—that too at a great discount?
Well, unless you are one of those who actually like to touch, feel, smell ,view and compare the product physically at a shop before making that big-or small- decision, you are most likely a convert, or even a fan of online shopping. However, at times, even online shopping may have pitfalls in terms of transactional and fraud experience. So, as a consumer, how do you assure yourself to have a safe and convenient online shopping experience?
Here are three quick tips:

(1)Shop from the most reputed portals ONLY: Some of us deploy certain price-comparison engines that promise to compare the prices of the same (or similar) products across many shopping portals. So whereas these price-comparison engines return results that you may find attractive, it is worthwhile to know that not all portals offer similar services, and quality of merchandise. The lesser known portals or Online Marketplaces/ Reverse auction or bidding sites may present what appear to be tempting or compelling offers at some not-too-reputed portals. Well, you may end up getting cheap knock-offs (counterfeit products), or second-hand, restored products. Most large portals tend to take their reputation seriously, and take active steps to weed out sellers who may sell counterfeit or brand-damaging products. The reputed sellers also have great policies for hassles-free returns/ refunds, if something turn out not just right. They sort of insure you against the “risk of the unknown” and ensure a pleasant and safe transactional experience for you. The policies of such good websites are customer-centric, and they do not intend to wriggle out of issues, should there be any.

(2)DO NOT look for a merchant’s payment details through search engine: You should not trust contact details such as phone numbers and UPI payment handles through a search engine to effect online payments. As local kirana shops are now accepting online payment modes, this is a common technique used by fraudsters for trapping unwary customers into believing they have found out the correct contact details of the neighbourhood shop through a search engine.

A search engine is an open-to-all resource allows people to “claim” businesses and update their contact details, through community-driven initiatives that are supposed to make the most updated details of places and businesses to anybody who searches for them. The pitfall is that fraudsters misuse these loop-holes, planting their own phone numbers and email addresses and use clever yet dubious website ranking techniques to make these manipulated search results appear at the top of your search. Believing that you have received the right information about your trusted shop, if you connect with the number or email ID, the fraudsters would impersonate the business and promise to deliver your order to your door-step, but will tease out your banking/ card details from you, or make you authorise high value transactions for a small-value order. The result: Your accounts and cards can be bled terribly. Steer clear of such confidence tricks.

(3)Available options if you face technical problems like multiple debits for the same transaction: Digital transactions usually involve payments in a digital mode (unless a portal offers cash-on-delivery payment option). Well, if you are paying through a digital mode like a credit / debit card, please appreciate that it involves complex process of authorisation messages and digital receipts gets exchanged between the Card Issuer and Acquirer banks, the Card networks, the Merchant and your device.

Fortunately, most reputed shopping portals have an automated end-of-day reconciliation process that causes them to immediately issue you a credit/refund of the extra payment/s you made for the same transaction

At times, delays in or failure of the acknowledgement for an authorised transaction from reaching you and/ or the merchant means that you will see the transaction as ‘failed’, which may cause you to initiate the transaction again. This means you have paid twice for the same transaction! Fortunately, most reputed shopping portals have an automated end-of-day reconciliation process that causes them to immediately issue you a credit/refund of the extra payment/s you made for the same transaction. If you do however get saddled with multiple debits for the same purchase when you are finally billed by your credit card issuing company, take heart. These companies too have an extremely robust dispute resolution mechanism with your merchant. But it is essential to keep track of your transactional messages and to scrutinise your card transactions when billed to you.

In such scenario, promptly take up an issue, even if you have paid using another card or a different means. Timely action helps you, as dispute management is governed by timelines as specified by card networks. You lassitude can cost you. Well, if in doubt about the success or failure of your transaction, call up the shopping portal and your bank to ascertain the fact, and then proceed to safely remedy the issue. It usually helps to use the same card for a repeat attempt to pay for the same transaction, as it then becomes easier for you to prove to only one bank that you got billed twice for the same and unique transaction!