Why the card matters
With a credit card, a fraudulent charge is the bank's money in dispute, and the Fair Credit Billing Act limits your liability to fifty dollars, which most issuers waive entirely. With a debit card, the money has already left your checking account while you wait for the investigation. The debit rules are also time-sensitive: your loss is limited to fifty dollars if you report within two business days, rises to as much as five hundred dollars after that, and can be unlimited if you let sixty days pass after the statement. Many card issuers offer virtual card numbers, which are disposable numbers tied to your real account, and they are worth using at any store you do not know.
Sizing up an unfamiliar store
Most fake shops are reached through an advertisement on social media, not through a search. Before you buy from a name you do not know, look for these.
- The price is half of what everyone else charges, which is the bait in nearly every case.
- The site lists no physical address, no phone number and no return policy written in specifics.
- The web address is a slight misspelling of a known retailer, or a known name with extra words attached.
- The only payment choices are a wire, a gift card, cryptocurrency or a peer-to-peer payment app, none of which can be reversed.
- Searching the store's name with the word scam or complaints turns up a pattern.
The padlock in the address bar proves only that the connection is encrypted. Fraudulent sites have it too.
At checkout
Check out as a guest where you can, and decline to let the store save your card, since a stored card is one more copy to be stolen in a breach. Give only the information the order requires. Save the confirmation email and a screenshot of the product page, because listings change.
When the order goes wrong
A federal rule requires sellers to ship within the time they promised, or within thirty days if they promised nothing, and to offer a refund if they cannot. Contact the seller first and keep it in writing. If that fails, dispute the charge with your card issuer, and do it within sixty days of the statement on which the charge appeared.
Tip Turn on instant purchase alerts for every card in the issuer's app, so a fraudulent charge reaches your phone in seconds instead of at the end of the month.
