How to Protect Yourself Against Fraudulent Websites
Question: How do you ensure your own protection when shopping online?
Question: How do you know whether the website/company is genuine?
Two very good questions. We are a UK based online retailer but you don't have to take our word for it. Here's a number of links and a simple, 3 step guide that we recommend you use to confirm we are who we say we are and we are really based in Hampshire, UK and not some fraudulent outfit based in Africa or China. Most of these are generic steps you can use for confirming the authenticity of any online shopping website you plan to purchase from.
Step 1
Make sure the company is really based where they say they are. To do this check out where the website domain name is registered. A .co.uk website name does not mean that it is necessarily a UK based company.
Go to http://www.nominet.org.uk/other/whois/ and type in the company's website address (waterware.co.uk in our case). If the .co.uk domain name is not registered in the UK then we recommend that you exericse extreme caution before purchasing from them.
Step 2
Ensure the company has 'real' contact details, not just an email address - a UK phone number for example and a UK address. Check out our Contact Us page for our phone number and please phone us if in doubt.
Step 3
Ensure the method of payment is secure. A locked padlock icon, proving the website connection is secure, should appear in your browser when you login or when you proceed to make your online payment. You will see this padlock icon when logging in to your Waterware account and when making any purchase with us. You should also know who is holding your credit/debit card information. We use SagePay as our payment service provider and do not hold any credit/debit card details ourselves. SagePay is fully compliant with the industry payment card data security standard (PCI DSS). Details of this standard can be found at http://www.visaeurope.com/aboutvisa/security/ais/main.jsp
We hope that, having followed the above steps, you are satisfied that shopping with us will be a safe and secure experience. We also hope you can use these steps to protect yourself when shopping anywhere else on the Internet.
Waterware