Many of us shop on the internet but do we always make sure that it is a secure site? Recently my sister had her credit card information stolen because she was not on a secure site. Within a matter of one day, six charges were made on her card and more were pending by the time she closed the account on the next business day.

Any time you are on a website where you are expected to provide secure information – - credit card information, account numbers or passwords, or anything else that someone could use to take your identity – - you should ALWAYS make sure you are on a secure website. To protect yourself, look for the following items when shopping online:

1- A SECURE CONNECTION – Normal web pages start with “http” however, over a secure connection, a website will begin with “https”. Note the “s” at the end.

2- A “LOCK” ICON- It is a standard practice for all web browsers to have a lock icon displayed when you are on a secure connection. I use Internet Explorer so my icon shows up in the far right of the web address bar. If you click on this icon it will display the details of the security of the site. If you are dealing with a merchant that you are not familiar with, you should click on this icon to view the site security because some fraudulent sites may try to imitate the icon. If you log into a PayPal account you can see that it says it is “identified by VeriSign.”

3- VERIFICATION SEAL – Online merchants want their customers to feel safe shopping with them so many will display highly visible but difficult to duplicate verification icons that will display details about the site’s security. With the PayPal example, an icon that says “VeriSign Identity Protection” is displayed.

If you don’t see any or all of these items, pick up the phone and call the merchant before risking your account and private information.