Correction: Safe as any time you give your c/c number to any company, *so
long as you use secure ordering.*  You are trusting the company you deal
with to treat your number properly, and obviously the vast bulk of them do
or the system wouldn't work.  The additional dangers from online ordering:

1) Since e-stores don't need much physical presence, it can be a lot harder
to track them down if something goes wrong.

2) If you *don't* use secure ordering, there is a finite (maybe large?)
chance that your c/c information will be monitored by a sniffer program
which watches data packets as they go by, looking for such information.  In
that case, if enough of your relevant information is captured, your card
has *definitely* fallen into the hands of a bad guy, and you can expect
massive charges before the card company shuts down the account.  In the US
you're only liable for the first $50 *on a credit card.*  This does *not*
apply to debit cards even if they look like credit cards (M/C logo
etc).  There your liability is unlimited.  In case it's not clear, secure
ordering doesn't stop sniffers from seeing your data; it just mashes it up
so that they get no benefit from it.

3) just a side note -- people using cable modems (not DSL) are sharing the
line with a number of other nearby folks, i.e. neighbors.  All of
everyone's data passes by everyone's cable modem.  Neighbors are a class of
folks who may have an unhealthy interest in your business; all of your
traffic is available to them, and because there is a limited number (a
dozen maybe?  I forget) it is fairly easy to figure out who is associated
with what packet stream.  Just something to think about.

david

At 08:24 3/24/2000, Todd Kaderabek wrote:
>has anyone of you ever got ripped off from ordering something online w/ a
>credit card?  never tried it before, just wondering what the general
>consensus was on online credit card transactions...
>----
>
>Safe as milk.

David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"