Just FYI for those new shoppers out there:

Yes, you have to give out your SSN...this is a job, the company needs to pay you!

If you make over $600 with any one company throughout the course of a year, they are legally required to send a 1099 form to Uncle Sam. No company wants to spend the last few days of December trying to track down all of their shopper's SSNs so they ask for that up front.

Now, when you're filling out those online applications, there are 2 ways to know that the site is secure:

1) up in the toolbar, the address will say: https://www.whatever.com
that little "s" means that its a secure site
2) in the lower right hand corner of the browser screen you'll see a little yellow padlock...if its closed, its secure...if its open, its not secure.

What "secure" means is that everything gets encrypted and encoded when it goes through tranmission. No one can really tap into it during submission. And, the information goes right into a companies database...its as safe as we can make it.

Now, if you're still uncomfortable, you can always type in "111-11-1111" and call the company, but then you're actually talking to a live person. You don't know what paper they're putting this info on, or what they're doing with it afterwards.

If a site is NOT secure...DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR SSN!

Don't just assume that if they ask you for your ssn that the site is secure...look for the "s" and the padlock.

And, actually, I recommend this with anything you do online...shopping, banking, whatever...make sure that the site is encrypted.

Good luck, and be safe!

-Buzzy

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www.QueenoftheRandomJob.com