How do I know I won't get scammed online?

It’s a question I often get asked. How can I trust an online shop? How do I know I’m not going to get scammed? The explosive growth of online shopping in South Africa means that there are many first time shoppers who are unsure of who to trust - and many new online shops popping up on an almost daily basis.

I always suggest taking the following three steps before shopping with an unknown company:

1. Google their name. Yes, it seems simple, but it tells you a lot about the company. For example, If you google “prophecy shop” you quickly get a sense that we are a real company - we are listed on price comparison engines, there are forum threads from our customers, and some compliments on Hello Peter - all good things.

2. Check on local forums and communities to see what is being said about the company. A quick search on Systemshock and MyBroadband gives you great insight into Prophecy - you immediately get a feel for how we treat customers and what the community believes about us. (Ninja tip - use the google “site:” tool to get around forums that won’t allow searching if you are not a member. Searching for “site:prophecy.co.za HD5870” on Google searches for the keyword HD5870 on Prophecy.co.za)

3. Check for external verification on their site. For example, at the top of our site we have links to TrustGuard - this is an external company that verifies our company’s legal registration, who the owners are (Paul Johnston - that’s me - and Henk Keuris), what our physical address is, and that our privacy policy follows certain requirements. But remember - don’t just look at these logos - click and see that they are valid!

Sure, it’s a little bit of work - but in 30 seconds you can vastly decrease the chances of someone scamming you.