If you’ve gotten to this article through a search engine or a link, then you may realize that you’ve stumbled upon the middle of the series for Choosing the Best Payday Loan Company.

You may be the type of person of course that likes to start from the beginning, so if that’s the case then you can click here now.

However, since all of these elements are crucial, starting here is fine. So let’s not waste anymore time and get right to…

Element #3 – Security and Privacy

I guess technically these are two elements, but we’ll kill two birds with one stone for this one. Basically a two-for-one special if you will.

It’s no secret that online, there are some very bad people lurking around just waiting for you to mess up and leave some important and sensitive information lying around.

When you’re applying for a payday loan, you’re giving some pretty sensitive information about yourself. You’re giving your name, your address, your phone number, and your birthday. All that right there is enough to make most identity thieves’ mouth water.

But then you go even further (much further) with the application and you enter your bank account number and your social security number… and often even your driver’s license number.

YIKES!

So you’ve got to be EXTREMELY careful that you’re dealing with a reliable company. By reliable I mean that it’s a company that’s U.S. based, so that way you have some sort repercussions to take as far as the law is concerned if something goes wrong.

But it goes even further than that…

You want to be sure that these companies are doing everything that they can to keep YOUR information safe from people who are lurking, who can take the slightest bit of information and make your life a mess because of it… much less all the information that you’re doling out to them for free when applying.

How to Tell If You’re Secure…

First, take a look at the browser bar, where you write the URL of the email address, and make sure that the URL begins with “https” (the s being the important part) and not just http, which means that the site is not secure.

When you see the “https”, it ensures that the information that you’re entering and sending gets encrypted so that in route to the server of the website that you’re on, it cannot be grabbed up maliciously by identity thieves. This is called SSL or Secure Socket Layers, and it’s what’s likely saved your butt thus far from identity thieves.

Also you want to look for legitimate site seals.

These seals are usually from security sites like MacAfee, Verisign, GeoTrust, or SSL.com. There are more but these are the most frequently seen.

But just a seal isn’t good enough.

You’ll want to hover your mouse over the seal and be sure that your browser displays information about the exact site that you’re on, therefore verifying that it’s actually for that site.

If you look for these two things, then you can assume that you’re fairly safe entering your information and that it’s encrypted.

What About Privacy?

The next issue is the Privacy Policy of the company that you’re doing business with when getting your Payday Loan.

First of all make certain that there IS a privacy policy.

Next read it, and make sure that you understand exactly how and if they’ll share your information.

For instance, if you’re dealing with a company who is simply shopping your information around to get you the best rate, you’ll want to know how much of your information that they’ll share with the lenders in order to get you the loan.

Most privacy policies will tell you that they’ll only share certain pieces of your information until a lender and you have decided to work with each other…and even then you want to ensure that the information will be encrypted when sent over.

These are the sort of things that although a pain in the butt, when applying for a payday loan you MUST watch out for. This is because you’re supplying tons of highly personal and sensitive information and you DO NOT want that information going out will-nilly online.

That’s just asking for trouble.

Okay, this was hugely important, and hopefully you understand just how important.

If you’re ready to go on to Part 4 of this series on Choosing the Best Payday Loan, then click here now!