Let’s imagine for a minute local department store you shop in. What would you think if displays never changed? Every time you entered you saw same signs advertising same products. Boring, right? After a while you wouldn’t even pay attention to them. Websites are no different. RSS feeds and blogs are interesting ways to spruce them up a bit - to keep things interesting and changing. Believe me, interest is a key element in drawing people back time and time again.

Dan’s website had been around for a while - several years in fact. Unfortunately, though he tediously watched for visitors, website was trickling in a minuscule amount of sales. One day, a friend told Dan that his website was cool, but...er...you might say a little dusty. It just needed freshened up a bit. Hey, what are friends for? Dan, began to research and decided to try blogging and using RSS feeds. He got excited and began including interactive polls, articles, sales updates, and even slipped in a few photos. Within a few days his site was indexed on Yahoo! and his sales were beginning to flow steadily. Within a month he was dancing gleefully with his latest bank statement in hand - much to amusement of his adolescent children!

Online fraud is an increasing problem that can be avoided. Every year more and more people shop online, and every year seems to bring more ways to trick unsuspecting buyers. This report was written to help protect you as a consumer.

Following guidelines set in this report will protect you from most types of online fraud, and help you recover in event that you are taken advantage of.

------------------- Before You Buy ------------------- Before you buy anything online, review store’s refund policy. Make sure they will accept returns on defective or wrong items. Also, see how long return period is, usually, it is 30 days.

Review store’s privacy policy. You want to know that your information is being handled responsibly before giving it to anyone.

------------------- During Check Out ------------------- Plastic or plastic? During checkout process you will be given a few payment options. Of these, you will probably see credit or charge cards. As you know, if someone accepts credit cards, they also accept debit cards. Debit cards are not same when it comes to limiting your liability for fraudulent use. Debit cards are fine for most things, but not online purchasing.

Credit or charge cards are ideal way to pay online. If you pay by credit or charge card online, your transaction is protected by Fair Credit Billing Act. Under this law, you have right to dispute charges under certain circumstances and temporarily withhold payment while creditor is investigating disputed charges. In event of unauthorized use of your credit or charge card, you generally would only be held liable for $50 worth of charges.