Rule of online shopping: Credit card = good, real money = bad. Real money (checks, money orders, etc) people can abscond with and not send you your item. They also can get lost in transit. Checks also have that little think called a bank acount number on them. Do you really want to give that information out to someone you do not know is legit or not?
Credit cards have the benefit of usually having a maximum of $50 liability. That is, you see suspicious activity, and report the number stolen, you're out $50 at the MOST, regardless of how much the thief charges on the stolen number. You get issued a new card. Big deal. Some cards even have a zero liability provision. Some card issuers have "red flag" triggers that will result in a call to you to verify activity. Say, someone makes $300 worth of purchases at various places in Michigan, and you live in the UK, and bought gas on the card a day prior, that may trigger a "might be stolen" flag and they'll get in touch with you to see if you actually made those purchases. Credit cards offer the best options for fraud protection. You lose money from a bank account... good luck recovering it.
There's also the Paypal service. I do not use Paypal, so I can't comment on it except that I did not like their terms and conditions when I investigated an account. Maybe it's changed since then, I don't know, but at the time it required a bank account to be tied into it. I do NOT like the idea of ever putting real money at risk, and bank account information is something I don't think anyone should ever allow over the internet. I won't put anyone's account info on my own system, nor do online banking, no matter how much they may trust me incase I should ever get hacked or get a virus. I figure the best security is to just keep it away from the net entirely.
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