Online security is to say the least something that makes most people nervous. Ask someone if they are comfortable with online purchasing, banking and just general electronic fund transactions. They will likely look at you like a green eyed monster and tell you about some horror story they heard about on the news or experienced first hand. There is no doubt that as technology makes it easier for the merchant to take money from your pocket, the thieves will follow in hot pursuit.
I do my share of online transactions, in fact a lot of what I do to make a buck is online. Not as a merchant with a store front but through the years I have forged relationships with companies overseas, through email, in person etc. This lets me purchase products and then resell them online at auctions like eBay or through word of mouth with friends etc. It is something that has been steadily growing and while it's not something that pays the mortgage yet it does help out.
Paypal and eBay being two of the largest money movers on the internet both present a blessing for consumers and a stumbling block for merchants. On one hand, paypal offers a great way for a merchant to accept payments without the hassle of trying to win the trust of the customer, but at the same time the horror stories about paypal accounts gone bad and stolen credit card numbers has people on edge about using the service. It is no surprise really that most of the people I talk to day to day are afraid to use their own paypal account even when they signed up years ago... They tell me they just never used it because they are afraid. Most in fact, don't even have their paypal accounts linked to a credit card or bank account. And who can blame them? I wouldn't want my account information stolen either.
Recently when signing into paypal however, something I do almost daily. I was presented with a new option. For a small one time fee of 5 dollars, paypal would send me a little plastic key chain device with a single button on it. Pressing this button generates a 6 digit number for which only paypal and eBay can understand. How does this help me? Well, now when I sign into either eBay or paypal. After entering my username and password it then asks me to press the button and enter the number that was generated. A new number is generated every 30 seconds and so you can't just sniff it out on a network to log in and once the number is used their servers instantly require a new number for subsequent logons.
Finally, a way to securly log into these services. I always had the fear in the back of my mind that one day from a hotspot or even on my own network some sneaky thief would sniff out my username/password. Now it's just not possible and I love it.
So now your asking yourself, so what if you lose the key fob? What then smarty pants. And my answer to that is... You have a phone number registered on file, you can login and click a link telling them you lost or forgot your fob somewhere and the system will call you at the designated phone number and give you a temporary access number. You can then request that another fob is sent to you.
Brilliant I say, and if you use either eBay or Paypal, you should get this little device on your side ASAP.
Clicking our way through life, one link at a time...
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