Why so many people are skepticals about purchasing online?

Why do you think? C'mon, there are tons of scam artists out there, viruses, phishing scams, pharming scams, ID theft, etc. Those things don't really make you feel safe about purchasing anywhere besides brick and mortar locations. I, however, do some shopping online. I am just very careful about who I give my personal information to. Not that even the safest site is 100% secure, but it adds a little peace of mind to the purchasing experience.

I have a paypal account and paypal is supported by many sites. So I just buy things from the sites supporting pay especially ebay. In this way, my information is only known to palpay which reduces the danger of being cheated. Of course if the product is not as good as what is advertized, then I am still cheated. I haven't figured out a way to prevent this kind of cheat which is caused from the honesty of the seller. But even if we buy it at a physical place, we still can't avoid this kind of cheat if seller sells some and move to another place to sell again.

I guess people are worried to pay online because of many scam sites.there are other sites which steels your credit card number etc.we should pay online only if we trust that site.

most people are not internet savvy i guess, even IT professionals got scammed or cheated. The thing is, we should do our homeworks... there are guidelines on shopping online. what to do, what not to do. i've got a friend who went to this place and bought something. It was a cool 4GB handy drive (pen drive) whatever you call that thing. It was value for money at that time. only about USD10. however, when he got back, and tried it out, it didnt work. when he opened up the pen drive casing, sure enough it's empty. no chips, no circuit board. it's only a re-used USB slot. where they cut it off from a broken usb mouse and covered it with a nice looking case and put a cool looking "4GB Flash drive" on it. again, the thing is, we'll get cheated even in the brick and mottar world. just be careful, be alert, do whatever we can, not to be cheated. and hope for the best... like they say, "s**t do happen" hehehe pardon the language....

just FYI, i found these few sites on fraud and scams online. quite informative... http://www.scambusters.org/backissues.html http://www.scamshield.com/Resources.asp

Unfortunenetly, people who arn't internet savey usually only hear negative stories from the news and chalk it up to "better not chance it". My parents are in their 40-50 age group and do not trust buying anything online. I've tried to tell them that it is safe if your going through a legeit site. Alot of people have gotten hacked including large name corperations who arn't suppost to get hacked. Those are the stories that ruin the possibly good experience they could have had.

i think maybe because they don't have experience with it? so they afraid those item they order wont come to their house?

And I am one of those many people, I've been looking and looking for this online store about this digicam I like and it's cheaper than the ones I saw in store here, I was prompted to buy it right there and then but I hesitated, maybe I ma not just familiar with online buying and I have yet to make my first purchase. People will be used to it one of these days, In our world where technoly keeps on rising and rising..everything can be order on line and deliver right on your doorstep.

I know. Many people are afraid that someone will get their account numbers so they don't buy online. They don't realize that if they use their card at motels...restaurants.....anyplace someone can steal their numbers!