While buying from domestic online pharmacies is relatively safe, when it comes to buying prescription drugs from other countries, there are particular risks involved. The goods could not arrive, or your credit card information could be stolen: fraudulent credit card charges after purchasing medicines online is not that rare of a case. For example the pharmacy Golden Pharma 25 has been known to steal its customer’s personal information and uses it for fraudulent purchases online, as discussed on the Pharmacy Reviewer Forum

One way to avoid this problem could appear to be money transfer businesses, such as PayPal. However, PayPal in particular does not allow buying medicines through their service, so this popular alternative is not very likely to be used by reputable pharmacies either.

One way to lower the risks when buying online is to use pre-paid credit cards. Using them can avoid givign out extra personal information. But the real advantage is that these credit cards can be loaded with just the right amount of money for the planned transaction. This way after the payment is processed, there is no more money that can be withdrawn from your bank account and since it is not an actual credit card, there will be no debt accumulation there either.

Pre-paid cards can be bought from Walmart or other common vendors. There is a good discussion on different prepaid cards and their use on Best Prepaid Visa Card That Doesn’t Require Personal Information

 

Prepaid cards before loading them with money usually cost only 3$ and there is a 2% international transaction fee, which is pretty standard, so when having doubts about the safety of an internet pharmacy, it is usually better to be on the safe side and use a card that will prevent additional financial losses even if the shipment will fail to arrive or some other problem arises.