Paying online safely: iDEAL, Tikkie, credit card and payment requests
How you pay decides whether you can get your money back. This is the ranking — and the two things to check on every payment.
With iDEAL and a bank transfer, money is gone once it is gone; getting it back depends on the goodwill of the recipient or the speed of your bank. With a credit card and PayPal there is a party in between that can protect you. Pay-after-delivery (Klarna, Riverty, in3) means you only pay once the product has arrived.
So: the less you know a seller, the more protection you choose. And on every payment you look at two things: who it goes to, and whether the amount is right.
How to spot it
- 1A payment request you must pay in order to receive.Does not exist. Anyone wanting to receive money gives an account number.
- 2An iDEAL page outside your bank.With iDEAL you pick your bank and land in your own banking app or site. A page asking for your login codes is never iDEAL.
- 3A Tikkie that does not start with tikkie.me.Every real Tikkie link starts with tikkie.me. Anything else is a copy.
- 4The recipient’s name is wrong.You pay “Coolblue” and the beneficiary is “T. Nowak” or a foreign IBAN. Stop.
- 5A second payment because the first “failed”.First check in your banking app whether the first was debited.
A real example, taken apart
- iDEAL itself sends no payment requests by e-mail.
- The domain is not ideal.nl and not your bank.
- A € 0.01 verification does not exist; the link leads to a copied bank login.
What you do
- Pick the method by how much you trust the seller.Unknown shop: credit card, PayPal or pay-after-delivery. Known shop: iDEAL is fine. Private person: meet and pay on the spot, or Gelijk Oversteken.
- Read the beneficiary and the amount in your banking app.Before you confirm. Unknown name or foreign IBAN? Cancel.
- Never open payment links from a message.Go to the shop or the app yourself and pay there.
- Switch on limits and notifications.A daily transfer limit and a push notification for every payment: you see it immediately when something goes wrong.
Never do this
- Type your bank login on a page that is not your bank’s — even if it says “iDEAL”.
- Pay in order to receive money.
- Repeat a payment without first checking your app.
Questions people ask
Is iDEAL unsafe?
No. iDEAL itself is safe; the problem is copied iDEAL pages that capture your login codes. Real iDEAL takes you to your own bank and never asks for your login codes on another site.
Which payment method is safest with an unknown shop?
Pay-after-delivery or credit card. With pay-after-delivery you only pay after delivery; with a credit card you can request a chargeback if nothing arrives.
Can my bank reverse an iDEAL payment?
Not by default: iDEAL is a direct transfer. Call anyway — in case of fraud the bank can ask the receiving bank to freeze the money, and that sometimes works if you are fast.
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