Thanks to the government's new Distance Selling Regulations shopping from home has never been so safe. Your credit card issuer becomes totally responsible for picking up the tab for any dishonest or fraudulent use of your credit card online, providing you act responsibly and look after your credit card and other personal details. This doesn't apply to auction sites, however.

Rule One for safe shopping online is that you must use a credit card – not Switch, Connect or any other debit card.. If you use a credit card the company gets involved if there is a dispute over a purchase of goods for personal use that are worth more than £100. If you already have credit cards, you might consider getting an extra one purely for online shopping. That way, all your online purchases appear on one statement, which makes checking paperwork easier and keeps your other credit cards safe.

If you can't get hold of a credit card there are a couple of alternatives, Splash Plastic and Smartcreds allow you to pay cash for credits.

General rules for safe and sensible online shopping are the same as for any mail-order transaction. Make sure you know exactly what you are buying, how long it will take to deliver and how much the dekivery costs will be. Check the terms and conditions, including the shop's policy on returns, and make sure you get a real phone number and postal address. Keep clear records.

As an added precaution, give your credit card details only to sites with checkouts that use a Secure Server connection. Look for a little padlock symbol on the status bar at the bottom of your browser, which indicates that you are communicating with a secure server.

The above is an extract from an article which appeared in issue 169 (March 2002) of Computer Shopper.co.uk.

All of the stores listed on this site should offer secure server transactions. You can check this for yourself. After you click on "Buy" and before you enter any credit card details the url in your browser address bar should change to https:// etc - the "s" after http denoting you are connected to a secure server. You should also see a closed padlock symbol in the status bar of the browser window .. Double clicking on this will display details of the site's security certificate.