Many legal terms concerning e-commerce vary from country to country. So it is important to contact your national Safer internet awareness node for detailed information.

What are untrustworthy commercial websites?
Untrustworthy websites may:

• not exercise their duties as contractual partner, e.g. they may not deliver purchased goods
• misuse your personal data
• misuse payment information (e.g., credit card data)

Commercial websites may also offer children services that are unwanted or illegal (gambling, pornography etc.). Quite often, such websites have their origin in countries where there is no adequate legal framework to ban such activities.

How can I recognise trustworthy commercial websites?
First of all, well known and well established companies are most likely as trustworthy online as in “real” life. Other criteria that help to recognise reputable commercial websites:

• clear identification of company with name of the company, address, telephone number, contact person etc.
• terms of contract are easily accessible and transparent
• the product’s features and conditions of guarantee are clearly defined and easily accessible
• the product price includes all additional costs
• a secure payment method is offered
• orders are confirmed with e-mail
• consumers have a clearly defined right of withdrawal
• time of delivery is specified

In case of any problems, dealing with online shops located in the consumers’ country tends to be the best way forward.

How can I recognise secure payment methods?
Trustworthy commercial websites conduct transactions only through “secure electronic transaction” means. So it is very important that, when you enter your payment information (e.g. credit card data), you always check that the internet address of the website you are visiting starts with “https://” and not with “http://”. In that way you will know whether or not the website provides secure transactions.

How can I avoid risks at online auctions?
The main problem with online auctions is advance payment. If your contracting party receives money but does not deliver, it is very difficult to get back the transferred money.

The best solution is to use trust services which are offered by online auctions platforms.

What is Identity Theft (Fraud)?
We speak about identify theft when personal details have been stolen and are used illegally. In most cases identify theft happens through the method of phishing or pharming.

How can someone steal my personal data? - The pharming method
Pharming is a form of domain name fraud that results in users believing they are on a genuine site with the correct URL, but instead of that they are diverted to a fake website. So, the users start conducting a transaction on that site, which in most cases involves the insertion of personal data, account codes, or credit card details. In this way the third parties behind the fake website can easily grab the victim’s data and use it for their own benefit.

How can someone steal my personal data? - The phishing method
Phishing is the practice of tricking a user into giving away personal information into a fake form on the internet. Such an activity will allow a cracker to steal / falsify the victim’s information or/and gain illegal access to his/her data such as personal accounts, subscriptions, emails, PIN codes, TAN codes, etc.

For example, the users receive an email which looks as if it comes from their bank. This will often talk about security ‘holes’ in the banking system, and asks them to kindly log into a special website (which again seems to come from the bank itself) and insert their user ids, passwords, e-banking information etc. It is important to remember that no bank would ask for personal information about its clients through email or other internet activities. You should never provide any of these details in response to an email and should report any such mailings to your bank immediately. An easy way to see if an email is genuine is to check the URL that provides the supposed link to the bank’s website.

Now go to your national node’s website to find useful links and further information.