Is www.cheap-lingerine.com safe to use my credit card on?

Question

I want to make sure my information is safe. This website is openly china-oriented but says to secure card information with Secure Sockets Layer technology (SSL) on those pages that involve sensitive information such as credit card numbers. Is this true, and is it safe enough? Thanks!

Answer 1

When using the credit card you have to ask yourself how well it is protected and what are the problems when the card info get compromised. If you have answers to those you can evaluate if the gain is worth the risk.

I don't know what the problems will be for you when the card info get compromised, but fore sure there will be some trouble with the bank. As for the risk of compromise:

• If the transport is protected with https in a way that the browser does not complain the transport of the data from your browser to their server is kind of secure.
• But this says nothing of what they do with the data at the server, e.g. do they store the credit card info by themselves or is their a well known and trusted third party involved to handle these data.
• Do they have security leaks in their store or at the server which make it possible for an attacker to grab sensitive information. Its hard to say from the outside.
• And apart from the credit card: how do you know the shop is even legit and they will ship the stuff you ordered and not just grab your money?

In short: there are no clear signs if it is safe to shop online. And shopping offline can be dangerous too, just look at the attacks at Target and other stores. And because you never know if it save you should limit the risk by only spending small amounts initially and always check you credit card statements.