Black Friday/Cyber Monday Online Safety

Most of the Black Friday ads for the big stores are out!  Besides in-store offers, many retailers offer hot deals starting midnight of Black Friday morning as well as Cyber Monday deals.  If you plan on doing some Christmas shopping, it is important to keep your information safe while buying online.  I found a great list of online safety tips I wanted to share from krazycouponlady.com that can help make the shopping experience easier and safer.

I never even considered reading a company's privacy policy before reading this - who knows what certain companies do with the information they receive!  As a general rule, I only fill out the required information that sites need for an account especially if the address is optional.

Another quick tip that doesn't quite belong on the list, but is a safety measure to yourself, is check out the company's return policy.  This especially true if you are buying things like clothing or shoes that have a good chance of being returned due to size variation.  Some companies offer to pay your return shipping and you can print out a shipping label, some only pay return shipping if you want an exchange or it the item is defective or wrong, and many require YOU to pay return shipping no matter what the reason.  I always check the return policy of any website before making a purchase to decide if buying the item would end up costing me a lot in the long run if there are any issues.

Good luck shopping everyone :)