Cyber Monday Security Tips

For the many great deals you find today, there will also be traps and experts say there are simple things you can do to protect yourself and your personal information.

Today is Cyber Monday, and more shoppers than ever are expected to shop online this year for deals such as a 50-percent discount from Amazon.com. Macy's is offering a buy one, get one free discount on shoes and Orbitz is offering 20 percent off on hotels.

The Chowder Pot of Hartford says they’ll be closing on March 25 after decades at its current location. After almost six decades and millions of customers, the restaurant said its building is starting to show its age. In a Facebook post, the restaurant said due to the age, size and constant amount of work needed to maintain the building combined...

If you’re one of them, think carefully about how you pay, Howard Schwartz, a consumer expert from the Connecticut Better Business Bureau, said.

“You should be using a credit card rather than a debit card,” Schwartz said. “A debit card may have a credit card logo on it, but it doesn’t have the same protection as a credit card. If somebody uses that debit card, the money comes straight out of your account. If you use the credit card, you have some time for a dispute and you don’t lose that money right away.”

He said it’s also important to make sure who you’re buying from. To check for a site that is secure, look for “HTTPS” before the URL. The “s” or a lock icon on your browser means the connection is safe.

“We have to watch out for how we get to a given site in order to buy things,” Schwartz said. “There are some great coupons sites from social media and also from spam emails, and this may take you to a lookalike site and we saw a quite a few of those last year, they’ll ask for your credit card number, load it on to a preloaded card and you’re out whatever money they can get from it.”