Top 10 Holiday Shopping Tips

These tips will help you avoid holiday shopping problems
and New Year’s budget blues

1. Prepare a holiday budget and stick to it. Avoid overspending by paying with cash.
2. If you pay with a credit card, use just one. If you pay by credit card, you get legal protections if you don’t receive what you ordered or if products are defective. Read the terms of your credit card agreement.
3. Ask about refund policies before you buy. Some stores offer a full refund, while others offer only a store credit or no refund at all. Save your receipts. You’ll need them for returns and exchanges.
4. When buying sale items, check your receipt before you leave the cash register. Make sure they did not charge you the regular price.
5. When buying on the Internet, make sure the website is secure before entering your personal or financial information. Secure websites begin with "https://" rather than just "http://." They also display a locked padlock at the bottom of the screen.
6. Read a contract and understand it before you sign. Check the interest rate and the total cost of the item including interest. Ask yourself if the interest rate is reasonable and whether you can afford the item.
7. Don’t be a victim of identity theft. Do not give personal information over the telephone or on the Internet unless you contacted that person or business. Do not write your address, phone number, Social Security, or driver’s license numbers on credit-card receipts. Before giving personal or financial information to a business, ask how they will use it and if it will remain confidential.
8. A new law this year gives consumers the right to redeem any retailer gift card for cash if it has a cash value of less than $10. Donated gift cards are exempt. The law forbids nearly all service fees on retailer gift cards. In California, most gift cards don’t expire no matter what the fine print says. (These rules do not apply to bank gift cards, which are issued by American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa and can be used at most stores.)
9. Layaway is again becoming popular in stores. If you buy an item by layaway, get a full receipt with a description of the item, total price, amount of the down payment, amount and due dates of payments, length of the hold and the store’s refund policy.
10. Many phony charities use names that sound like the real charities. Don’t be fooled. Investigate before you give.