Of all the Online Payment Services and Methods, which One is the Safest?
For as long as anyone can remember, paying online has been all about credit cards - everyone accepts them, and you get protections against theft and fraud that no one else gives you. Well, almost. People don't often think of experimenting with other online payment services and methods; for this reason they don't really get to see how some services have evolved to compete with the standard credit card since the last time they looked, and others, that they know and trust, are much worse than they would ever believe. Did you for instance know that getting a co-branded credit card from a retail store puts you at greater risk of being targeted for fraud than using a general credit card? And online payment services like PayPal can be very safe, even if they do have a few specific eccentricities that it would be nice to be warned about. Let's look at how safe each one of these familiar methods really is when you use them as online payment services.
Take the poor image problem the standard debit card suffers from; people don't use them at stores or online, because they still can't shake off the feeling that if there was any fraud done on a debit card you have, you end up losing all the money. That is just not true anymore. Almost every debit card issuer now backs you up with a zero liability policy; however in the typical market speak that businesses employ, zero liability doesn't actually mean it will cost you nothing. The larger the sum that is stolen out of your account, the larger will be the "cleanup expenses" that you are charged. On average these days ago, people end up owing a lot less for debit card fraud though, than they do for credit card fraud. As online payment services go, debit cards will be your best bet. Did you realize for instance, that credit cards, while they are only used in two out of four transactions, actually account for three out of four cases of fraud? Co-branded store credit cards only work on a small store network; and they usually don't have the resources to detect fraud like the general card issuers do, and you end up being hit more often.
But how about the alternative online payment services - ones like Google Checkout, Bill Me Later, or, the king of them all, PayPal? These services are useful because they stand as a seam of safety between you and the business you buy something from. Using a credit card, you give the seller every bit of information they would need to actually steal from you. Using PayPal like services though, the merchant never knows about your password or your username; when you press the Checkout button using online payment services like these, you're right away taken to that service's home page to sign in and pay. You don't actually pay on the merchant's website. That is an excellent strategy to prevent fraud.
These online payment services are different from the credit cards and debit cards now in an essential way - they are push payment services. What this means is, that each time you are to let someone have some money, you'll need to go put in your sign-in information and actually push the money out into their accounts. With credit cards and debit cards, they have your information, and they can get paid using that information by just pulling money out of your account - they are pull payment services. On the push-type online payment services, you do have to guard your password very closely; if someone gets it and steals your money, you still do have protections, but it's entirely up to the payment service, and they will take their time. As much as these new online payment services make a lot of sense for specific situations, the safest bet still is the credit card. And it looks like it will be for a good long time to come.