As of this article, Christmas is only three days away, which means online ordering is mostly out of the question. If you have any last-minute gifts to buy, you’re probably going to need to rush out to the store to do so. But in addition to keeping your distance and wearing your mask, there’s another thing you should do to protect yourself while shopping — pay with your phone.
Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, your smartphone has some type of mobile payment system. On iPhone, that’s Apple Pay; Samsung has Samsung Pay; and Android phones in general have Android Pay. These mobile payment options ask you to link a credit or debit card to your phone, and allow you to pay for your items with just a scan of said phone.
If that sounds sketchy, don’t worry — it’s actually one of the most secure forms of payment we have.
Why? Because the store you’re buying your gifts from never actually gets your credit card information.
When you scan your phone at the store, the store instantly communicates with the bank attached to your credit card. The bank confirms to the store that the payment is valid, and the exchange goes through, with no vulnerable information passed one way or another.
When you use a credit card, you run two main risks. Either the store’s POS has a skimmer installed, that pulls your credit card’s information and remembers it for a later, nefarious use, or an employee at the store simply writes down your card’s numbers for their own use. With Apple Pay, Android Pay, or Samsung Pay, you avoid both of those scenarios.
Luckily, setting up a mobile payment is really straightforward. Your iPhone or Android will walk you through each step of the process, from connecting a credit card, to teaching you how to pull up the mobile payment.
