electronic delivery

[Leslie]

After reading an article in Reader's Digest, I might buy a very rare item online with my credit card, but I have ZERO desire to use that credit card ANTWHERE in the brick and mortar world.

The article was frankly shocking.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually thats rightconcerning real life dangers to your credit. I make the same recommendation all the time to purchasing anywhere. Never use a major credit card to make non-major purchases. Get a little $200 limit card that is not tied to any major account and use it for gas and restaurants. Those are the most likely places to lose control of your account.

But as I said, I work for ISPs. What you said about SSL and such is true but man-in-the-middle attacks are almost mythical. Spyware on a users machine is far more likely. And no matter how many times I recommend it, very few companies bother to keep their accounting systems (the ones that store the info) completely off of the net.

Gandalf Parker

[Ond]

If you shop online at well known sites such as Amazon, Play, Ebay, Party Poker, Microsoft, etc your card is fine. I have shopped online for about 10 years, several times every month, and I have not once had a problem with anything.

I spend more money shopping online a month than I do at my local grocery store, or my local gas station.

Its the future, weather you like it or not.

Obviously if you go to more obscure sites (porn sites being a good example) you are trusting your card info with the wrong type of people.

Readers Digest? Oh come on.

Like Hiro mentioned earlier in this thread - ordering online is one of the safest ways to shop.

[Sammas]

I'd definitely be much more inclined to buy if download was an option. Games are impulse buys - waiting for a week is a real turn-off.