Avoid the crowds, shop online

Kudos to one of my personal finance heroes, Humberto Cruz, and his wife Georgina who completed their holiday shopping in October. I should be totally annoyed but Humberto is such a nice guy... I will only confess that I am jealous. 

I haven't even started my holiday shopping yet.

But you won't catch me in a mall on Black Friday. Shopping ranks somewhere around visiting the dentist in terms of ways I want to spend my time. So I will start my shopping this Friday, but I'll do am much of it as possible online. I am happy to share my online shopping tips with you since writing about them gives me more time to procrastinate.

Give great gifts: To figure out what to buy, start is with Consumer Reports Best Gifts issue which you can order online (a summary of the top picks is free) or you can pick up the printed magazine at your local newsstand. If little ones are on your gift giving list, check out US PIRG's annual toy safety survey. Some 73,000 children were treated for toy related injuries last year (!), and most of those could be prevented.

Once you figure out what you want to buy (and what not to buy):

Get the best price: Use shopping bots to find the best price online. A few popular ones are PriceGrabber.com, MySimon.com and BizRate.com. If you'd prefer to buy from a local merchant, try ShopLocal.com.

Use your credit cards: Federal law protects you against loss or theft if you use a credit card. $50 is your maximum liability and most issuers will take that number down to zero for you. Debit cards carrying the Visa and MasterCard logos also offer zero liability for most transactions but you need to spot the loss quickly or you could be bouncing checks all over town.

Under federal law you also have billing error protection that allows you dispute a credit card charge (but not a debit card transaction) for an item that isn't delivered as agreed. This can include delivery later than a promised date, or delivery of an item when the merchant ships you an item that is different in size, color etc from what you ordered. It does not cover buyer's remorse.

Print and keep a copy of your receipts for online purchases: It also doesn't hurt to print out a copy of the website description of the item as well. Make a note of exchange and return policies for your recipients.

Watch your statements: This is a busy time of year for thieves too. If you don't carefully review your statements, you won't know when your account has been compromised. So review your statements, preferably online which just takes a few minutes. If you can set up alerts on your accounts to notify you of unusual activity, do so.

If something does go wrong,gather your documentation and try to resolve the problem with the merchant. If you can't resolve it quickly, then file a dispute with your credit card company.

If you find you need to dispute a charge, make sure you follow the rules. You must write to the card issuer within 60 days at the address for billing errors or inquiries listed on your statement. A phone call is fine to discuss the problem with your issuer, but make sure you follow up with a letter to protect your rights. You can then withhold payment on that particular purchase until it is resolved. (But you must continue making your minimum payment or pay all the other charges if you normally pay your bill in full.)

Oh, and before you start shopping, give yourself a gift: make sure you have up-to-date antivirus and spyware detection software on your computer. If you don't have both, don't bother shopping online. You might as well just open your wallet and ask a stranger to take what they want. Consumers lost over $8 billion to online scams last year. That's the last thing you want to deal with during the holidays.

Happy bargain hunting!