Imagine the scenario: you’ve just had a nice Christmas. Your kids are all happy when returning to school to see their friends and tell them what santa brought them. You’re happy, because although you’ve spent a lot on the kids, you’ve kept a nice amount of savings to do you over the cold and often depressing January that follows. Then, when you try to pay your bills that month you’re hit by a bolt out of the blue – you have insufficient funds!

You KNOW that you didn’t spend EVERYTHING! You go to see the bank and fin out that all your funds are gone, and everything has been taken well into the red!

Someone has stolen your identity and taken you for all you have! Forget about “the nightmare before Christmas” – this is the nightmare after Christmas!

Identity theft is a terrible scourge of online shopping. Try to keep your details secret this Christmas.

If there’s one thing could spoil your Christmas it’s getting a mega bill for presents that YOU didn’t buy.

Moneynet ( http://www.moneynet.co.uk ) has issued some simple tips to help shoppers stay secure this Christmas.

This includes not using sites you don’t know and trust and looking out for some symbols at the bottom right of your screen; such as a locked lock or a broken key.

Moneynet also offers advice checking your bank statements and printing off copies of your orders. Moneynet tells you that “nothing is 100% safe” so you always need to pay attention to what you are doing on the net, and if you’re in doubt – don’t proceed.

To find out more about Moneynet’s advice visit their site at http://www.moneynet.co.uk/credit-card-guide/index.shtml and find out what NOT to do this Christmas.

Additional resources:

http://www.moneynet.co.uk/credit-card/index.shtml