Tips for a scam-free holiday

Online shopping is an easy way to shop for sales and avoid crowds at the mall. It is also an easy way to get ripped off.

And because online shopping spikes during the holiday season, scammers enjoy a larger pool of potential victims. "They see it as an opportunity to defraud consumers," says Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, a nonprofit group that educates consumers and businesses.

Online-security experts say consumers should stay alert on auction and classified-ad sites, where a lot of the fraudulent activity takes place. And phishing activity — say, bogus e-mail from charities that is used to fish for consumers' financial information — tends to increase during the holiday season.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center, tracked $198.4 million in losses due to Internet fraud last year. That was up from $183.1 million in 2005. Under federal law, credit-card customers are liable for only $50 for unauthorized charges, and some issuers don't even charge the $50. But the customer first has to notice the bogus charge and report it to the card issuer.

By conducting a little research and using a few basic tools, you can limit your vulnerability to scams and fake e-commerce sites. Free software can alert you when you are at a fraudulent Web site, like one used for phishing. And financial institutions offer temporary account numbers, so you don't have to fork over useful financial information to online merchants.

Here are a few ways to shop safely:

Update your security software

The first thing you need to do before you even begin shopping is protect your computer. That means getting updated versions of a firewall and anti-virus and anti-spyware software, Teixeira says. Many computers come with such software preloaded. But if the user doesn't pay roughly $50 to $150 when the trial period is up, often after 90 days, the software expires.

Only 22 percent of Internet users say they have the core protection recommended by Teixeira, according to a study released in October by the security alliance and online-security company McAfee Inc. The most common reason users didn't have the protection was because they failed to keep their security software up to date, he says.

If you're online, click on the periodic update alerts that flash on your screen.

Determine if the store is legit