Safe and Secure Commerce

Credit Card Data
When credit card information is requested, we utilize a credit card authorization company for secure SSL encryption. This ensures that your credit card number is never sent over the Internet unencrypted. Once it is encrypted, no one except the credit card authorization company can decrypt it. Your credit card number is never displayed on our site. Also your personal data (such as your address, e-mail and billing information) are stored in a server safe within our database. Only those with proper authorization can view this data.

What is SSL encryption?

To protect our members, we use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to encrypt the credit card information you send when you place your order. The information is encrypted on your computer, sent through the Internet as scrambled code, and decoded on a secure server. We do not store your credit card information. It cannot be read in transit. SSL is the recognized industry standard worldwide for such sensitive transactions, making it safe for you to shop with a credit card on the Internet. Even banks transfer money and complete credit card transactions using this secure method.

Why Isn't My Browser Indicating "Locked"?

SSL encryption ensures that transaction information is sent securely but has a significant performance tradeoff in the browser environment. You may have noticed that the pryor.com and careertrack.com site employ frames for easier navigation and more efficient page updates. With this in mind we selectively place SSL encryption on only those forms and frames that need to be encrypted (i.e. when the credit card information is requested). Since things like our navigation buttons and menus do not need to be slowed down by SSL, we do not employ it there.

Unfortunately (but for obvious reasons) browsers won't show the safe "KEY" or "LOCK" unless each and every frame on the page is SSL encrypted. Thus, if only one frame is encrypted, the browser correctly reports that not everything you are looking at is "safe". However, the absence of the "lock" or "key" does not mean that the information you are looking at is not encrypted.

You can verify that a frame is SSL encrypted by right-clicking within the frame and looking at the frame info or properties (ie. found in the "View" menu in Netscape and the "File" menu in Internet Explorer). Doing this when the credit card information is requested will indeed show that this information is being sent encrypted and thus any security concerns you may have should be relieved.