Teach Your Kids to Be Safe and Savvy Online Shoppers

Many children and teenagers, as well as adults, are enthusiastic online shoppers. According to some estimates, more than half of all teenagers now shop online regularly. And with online sales increasing as much as 25 percent annually in recent years, the number of kids who shop online is likely to keep growing.

It's easy to see why the Internet is so popular with young shoppers. Kids who shop online don't have to rely on their parents for a ride to the mall, they can shop when it's convenient for them, and they can spend their time looking at the things they like instead of being dragged to the housewares department by their mom.

With Online Shopping, Experience Counts

As a parent, you are an experienced shopper who can see through marketing hype, compare prices and assess the value of different products, and delay gratification when necessary, but your kids haven't had enough shopping experience to develop those skills. They are more likely to buy on impulse, share personal information too easily, or accept misleading information at face value. And that can be dangerous.

Online Shopping Risks for Kids

The primary threats to online shoppers are fraud and identify theft, which cost consumers billions of dollars every year, and kids are no exception. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission says that almost a third (31 percent) of all reported identity theft victims are teenagers.

Online Shopping Safety Tips

Here are a few tips that can help you teach your kids how to stay safe and secure while shopping online:

• Set clear rules for online shopping. Work with your kids to establish a few guidelines for online shopping, such as requiring them to get your approval before completing an online purchase. As your kids become more experienced and responsible shoppers, you can modify the rules to give them more freedom to make their own decisions.
• Learn to recognize and use secure shopping sites. Submitting personal or financial information on a site that isn't secure is an open invitation to identity theft. Teach your kids to look for https in the URL of any site where they plan to enter financial information (the "s" stands for secure). They should also check for security icons, such as a padlock, which represents a security certificate. By double-clicking on the icon, they can compare the Web address to the security certificate to make sure the site is legitimate.
• Don't fall for unbelievable deals. You know from long experience that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but your kids may not be that savvy. Teach them to ignore e-mail offers and pop-up ads that promise free merchandise or absurdly good deals. Such offers are not only unlikely to be real, they also may carry viruses or spyware that could damage your family computer or steal confidential information.
• Shop securely. Caution your kids about shopping over an unsecured wireless network or on a public computer, such as those they use in the library or at school. Help your kids develop secure passwords that include at least eight characters and an unpredictable mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols-and make sure they understand why they should never share their passwords with their friends.
• Make secure payments. Use your credit card for your kids' online purchases, and then have them pay you back in cash. With credit card purchases, federal law limits your liability in case of fraud and mandates dispute resolution assistance in case of other problems with online merchants. People who use debit cards for online payments run a higher risk of identity theft, because they are giving merchants direct access to their money.

Even if your kids never fall prey to online criminals, there are other ways their inexperience can cost you both money-from buying on impulse without shopping for a better deal to submitting online auction bids without stopping to think how they are going to pay the bill if they happen to win.

Online shopping can be a rewarding experience for you and your kids-giving you an opportunity to teach them financial responsibility and even sharpen their math skills. But for online shopping to be beneficial, it must first be safe and secure.

For more information online shopping safety, see "How to Shop Safely Online".