Protect Your Identity When Shopping Online

This 🎄 holiday season we want to 🔔 remind you that just because you’re not a kid anymore that doesn’t mean that you should be sharing personal information with strangers even if it is sin querer queriendo 🤷🏽‍♀️. In other words, do as your mami told you when you were little  and “no hables 🙅🏽 con extrańos.” And that applies to strangers on the internet trying to steal your identity while you buy regalos online 💻. 

Check out this year’s holiday shopping 🛍️ forecast in a simple math equation:

The pandemic ➕ the holidays = more of us buying holiday gifts online. 

You don’t have to be psychic 🔮 like Walter Mercado to know that everyone is going to be doing more online shopping this year and it’s safe to say that Latin@s are going to be dropping big bucks on online gifts because even before the pandemic Latin@s, especially those of us who are bilingual-ish, were shopping more online than any other Americans. Don’t believe us? We’ve got receipts 🧾! 

According to a 2018 study by the NPD Group and Univision: “Bilingual Hispanics spend 20 percent of their dollars online, a higher percentage than that of all Americans (17 percent) and all non-Hispanics (16 percent).” Now, imagine how much the pandemic will affect those numbers across the board. 

We’re all for you staying home 🏠, buying online and staying healthy 😷, but we also want to help protect you from online thieves and no, you can’t just leave las luces 💡 prendidas to keep them away.

Here are 5 Tips to protect your identity while shopping online: 

🚫 Don’t use a 🆓 public WiFi 📶 connection because other members of the public can see anything you send out including your credit card numbers, pins and passwords. 

✅ Only make purchases from secure websites. That means that if you look at the address bar, the website address starts with “https” instead of “http.” Https means that the site has a secured connection which is a lot harder to hack than an unsecured one. Sometimes your browser will show you a lock 🔒 on the address bar for secured websites.

🚫 Don’t use a debit card. Credit cards offer a lot more protection than debit cards do in case of fraudulent activity and you want that protection. 

✅ Change any and all weak passwords. Come on, at least try to make it hard for a hacker to guess your password. 

👀 Monitor your credit card purchases. Check your purchases via your credit card issuers app or website regularly and report any suspicious activity IMMEDIATELY. 

Share any tips that you have for protecting your identity online in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter 🗞️. 

Sources: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/money-moves-december/, https://www.csoonline.com/article/3246984/why-you-should-never-ever-connect-to-public-wifi.html and https://www.licenseglobal.com/retail-trends/study-highlights-hispanic-shopping-habits