This year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping event could be the biggest yet with UK consumers predicted to spend more than £4billion.
That makes it more important than ever that consumers are aware of their rights when shopping online, and about the steps they can take to protect themselves.
Trading Standards are urging consumers to follow their ten Internet shopping tips:
- If possible, buy from Internet traders you know and trust
- For unknown traders, search for reviews online or check out their customer ratings
- Make sure the trader has a genuine address and landline number you can contact them on if things go wrong, not just an email address
- You have very few rights if you buy from a private seller, as opposed to a trader
- You have a 14 day cooling off period to change your mind and return/cancel most goods or services purchased online from a UK or EU trader
- You can return faulty or mis-described goods free of charge to a trader, but you may have to pay to return goods if you simply change your mind
- Always use a secure form of payment to pay for goods or services, for example PayPal. Never simply transfer money
- Don’t enter your card details in to a website unless you are certain it is secure. Look out for the padlock sign and ‘https’ in the web address
- For purchases over £100, if you have a credit card, consider using it for the purchase to give you extra consumer protection
- There are many bogus websites selling counterfeit branded goods and charging genuine prices. For links to genuine retailers visit: https://www.brand-i.org/
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