Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction

Though small in relation to ecommerce turnover, Internet fraud is serious for the victims and for the reputation of the industry. According to NCL, US Internet fraud losses amounted to $6 million in 2001.

E-tailers are gradually adopting protective measures, though more reasonable charging by credit card processing companies would help. Some 70% of e-merchants adopt address verification systems, 54% follow up with their customers or adopt real-time authorizations, and 43% adopt after-the-fact fraud prevention measures.

Below are some E-auction fraud prevention:

(a) User identity verification—It is a voluntary program which encourages users to supply eBay with information for online verification. It qualifies them for highest level of verification.

(b) Authentication service—It determines whether an item is genuine and described appropriately.

(c) Grading services—It is used to determine physical condition of an item.

(d) Feedback forum—It provides users with ability to comment on their experiences with other individuals.

(e) Insurance policy—eBay offers insurance underwritten by Lloyd’s of London at no cost to eBay users.

(f) Escrow services—Items valued at more than $200, eBay recommends escrow services which require for a fee.

(g) Non-payment punishment—First time nonpayment warning, fourth offense is cause for suspension from auction.

(h) Appraisal services—It use a variety of methods to appraise items such as assessment of authenticity and condition and review of what comparable items have sold for in recent months

(i) Item verification—It is a way of confirming the identity and evaluating the condition of an item.

A review on a post on Legal: New SMS scam

(http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-sms-scam.html)

First and foremost, SMS scam is a crime punishable under Malaysia law.

There are precedents of punitive actions taken against rogue SMS-delivered Content Providers evident from industry regulator MCMC's reprimand against fraudulent operators.

April 9, 2007, MCMC dispatched a letter to Sandip Das, Morten Lundal and Shazali Ramli -- the CEOs of Maxis (Malaysian Mobile Services Sdn Bhd), DiGi and Celcom, respectively -- in response to consumer complaints on fraudulent SMS Mobile Content Services, particularly on the issues of SMS Spoofing and Short Code Masking.

Below is a simple diagram to illustrate the modus operandi how multiple parties are involved in the SMS scam.

Maxis installed the Maxis Anti-Spam Platform. This works as a firewall that blocks out Spam/Hoax SMS based on keyword identification. This firewall stops unsolicited SMS from reaching our customer base.

Since the installation the Anti Spam Platform, an average of a million Spam/Hoax SMS per month have been blocked from reaching our customers. Offenders often look for ways to circumvent the system, and sometimes, some of these messages slip past our Anti-Spam blocking mechanism. Maxis investigate all complaints and add all new Hoax SMS cases to our Anti-Spam Platform’s database for future auto-blocking.

In the meantime, Maxis advice their customers do not respond to any unsolicited SMS that offer “too good to be true” prizes for contests or promotions from established Malaysian companies, especially if you did not sign up for such contests or promotions in the first place. Usually, these SMS feature a foreign phone number for the recipient to respond to, with a non-Malaysian telephone country code prefix. This is one indication that such an SMS could not have originated from Maxis/Hotlink. Customers are urged to not call these numbers.

Example of SMS Scam:

E-Government in Malaysia

Malaysia aims to become developed country in the year 2020. To achieve this vision, Malaysia has started to develop its E-Government policies.
Malaysian Government has its own official portal now: http://www.gov.my/

This website consists of four categories: Citizen, Non-citizen, business and government.

Citizen: http://www.gov.my/MyGov/BI/Directory/Citizen/
This website is linked to many other website. Public can get some information under this category, such as education, employment, security and safety, legal matters, health and etc. Public also can use the online service such as job application (http://www.elx.gov.my/) pay for summon (http://www.speed.com.my and http://www.myeg.com.my/) and etc.

Business: http://www.gov.my/MyGov/BI/Directory/Business/
This website is linked to Inland Revenue Board Malaysia, Companies or individuals can summit their income tax return by using e-filling provided here. Besides that, the website is also linked to SSM (application for business name approval), Advertising licenses and etc.

Government: http://www.gov.my/MyGov/BI/Directory/Government/
This website is more likely to provide services for public servant. For example, they can check the computation of Pension, Gratuity and Cash in lieu of Accumulated Leave for Compulsory Retirement, apply for the appointment of education service position, apply for evaluation competency level examination and etc.

Non-citizen: http://www.gov.my/MyGov/BI/Directory/NonCitizen/
Non-citizen can visit this website to search for the information about Malaysia. They can fill the income tax form, apply for renewal of licenses, apply for immigration and etc.

Development of E-Government has given Malaysian citizen a great deal of convenience; it connects public to the government, especially for companies and individuals who need to summit income tax return, it saves lots of time!!

However, success of E-Government still have many barriers, for example, linkage of databases like My-card, public awareness of E-Government, Language barrier in the website (most of the websites are using Malay, including Non-citizen directory), speed’s issues of services and Internet connection area within Malaysia.

E-Government is one of the indicators to show the success of a country. To achieve our vision 2020, E-Government is playing an important role.

Corporate Blogging~A new marketing communication for companies.

In today's economy, corporate Blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Corporate Blogging refers to a company producing or supporting a blog that it uses to accomplish business objectives.

It has three types which are external blog, internal blog and CEO Blog. Internal blog is a weblog that any employee can view, it encourage employee participation, free discussion of issues, direct communication between various layers of organization and is a sense of community. On the other hands, external blogs is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or it often used to announce new products or new services, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issue. It is useful in company marketing communication, the marketer can asking the user for feedback, doing product testing or shows marketing plans to the customer through the blog.

Moreover, corporate weblogs, or “blogs”, are a great, cost-effective way to engage customers, fellow professionals. Besides that, employees on blogs communicate with customers, with business partners and anyone else about a wide array of business topics. How can you benefit from promoting corporate blogging within your company? Depending on the company or your business model, corporate blogging can help your company feel more human to the world and it is a way for your company to become intertwined with the Internet community. If your corporate blog gains popularity, you could have thousands of people subscribing to your feeds. This can equate to instant success and popularity of your products.

For examples:

Companies like Adobe, Dell, and Wal-Mart are getting into the blogosphere because it’s imperative for their competitive advantage, for corporate marketers to do things right and to also blog for the right purposes. Blogging is inescapable for corporations and with a renewed focus on figuring out the ROI of blogging, corporate marketers can soon start blogging without fear and with a reason.

Pros:
~Reach more employees with a single message
~Be more accessible
~Create a searchable archive of thoughts and ideas
~Employees' questions and feedback will be permanently recorded on a blog

Cons:
~Need to master a new style of communicating
~Creates an expectation that you will post regularly
~Puts the CEO “out there” and writing ability and though process will be scrutinized—at least initially
~The writing can be difficult unless the CEO loves to write (in which case this becomes a positive)

Corporate blog examples

Jonathan’s Blog - The blog of Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. Although John is the CEO of a USD$15 billion company, he blogs just like a regular guy.

The Official Google Blog - My favorite corporate blog, the Google blog gives you a peek into the internet giant’s products, technology and culture and frequently features manager’s blogging about the projects they work on.

Blue Flavor Blog - Blue Flavor is another successful small business that effectively employs a thought leadership strategy in their blog.

Kid Chan Studio Blog - A good example of a corporate blog from a Malaysian company.

Exabyte Blog - Another Malaysian blog, the Exabyte Blog does a good job of humanizing a ‘virtual’ company and notifying readers of special offers.

10 Most Popular Corporate Blogs (Ranked) - May 2008:

Boeing
Monster
Kodak
Delta
Yahoo!
General Motors
Ask.com
LinkedIn
Digg
Dell Yahoo! Search

The application of pre-paid card for consumers

A prepaid card looks like a credit or debit card, and gives users the ability to purchase products and services with a card but with a crucial difference - you can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card. This means there is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

The most common use of prepaid card in Malaysia is Touch ’n Go. Touch ‘n Go card is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports in Klang Valley, selected parking sites. Touch ‘n Go enhances the speed of paying for low value but high frequency transactions. Apart from the speed, it is also very convenient because user no longer need to prepare for small change or wait in queue at the cash lane to complete the transaction.

In Singapore, ez-link card is used commonly. The ez-link card is a thin, compact card conforming to ISO/IEC 7816 card dimensions. A tamper-proof IC chip and antenna are built into the card. The sensing distance between the card and the reader is up to 10cm. The card itself contains no battery but operates from electromagnetic energy received from the reader.
Both the card and the reader ensure secure, fast and reliable transmission of data between them. The strong encryption techniques prevent eavesdropping and fraudulent use. This helps to ensure the integrity of transaction information captured.

Compared to touch ’n go in Malaysia, ez-link card is more convenient. It is used in many sectors:
1) Food & Beverage such as McDonald's Restaurants, Chills Café, Sakae Sushi (NTU), Old Chang Kee (NTU) and F&N Coca Cola Vending Machines and etc.

2) Convenience Store: 7-Eleven

3) Gaming: Singapore Pools Branches

4) Government Services: Immigrant & Checkpoints Authority, National Library Board and Singapore Land Authority (Temasek Tower Office only)

5) Health: Tan Tock Seng Hospital Pharmacy and Health Sciences Authority

6) Shopping, Retail & Leisure: Booklink Bookshop (Republic Polytechnic), Cathay Cineleisure, Chinese Swimming Club, More Than Words Pte Ltd

7) Tertiary Institutions: National University of Singapore (Central Lib, Science Lib, CJ Koh Law Lib, Hon Sui Sen Lib), Singapore Polytechnic (Service Kiosk), MDIS

8) Schools: PLMGS (Canteen and Bookshop), Campus Supplies Pte Ltd, Ang Mo Kio Sec Sch and etc.

9) Private Bus Services: Metro Tours Singapore, Transit Network Consortium Ltd, Ming Yu Jiang Express Pte Ltd and Premier Buses

10) Others: WYWY Office Solutions Pte Ltd, Seng City Photocopying and Printing and Expresspoint Business Services (PSB Academy)

Top-up services and ez-link payments are available at the following merchants:
1) 7 Eleven
2) MDIS
3) PLMGS (Pacific Bookstores Pte Ltd)
4) Republic Polytechnic (Booklink)

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

Bank Negara Malaysia sees tremendous promise in mobile telecommunication networks seem more applicable as an electronic payment channel since mobile phones are already in the hands of most Malaysians, with 88% of the Malaysian population subscribing to mobile phone services.

There are immense opportunities to leverage on mobile phones to accelerate the migration to electronic payments, to widen the reach and appeal of electronic payment services, to deliver innovative mobile payment products that offer speed, simplicity and convenience at minimal cost for the public, as well as to provide an efficient and cost-effective method of delivering financial services even in the remote areas.

The high percentage of mobile phone subscriber and the high rate of participation of the population in the banking system are important pre-conditions for the significant use of the mobile phone as an ideal platform for personal payments. With the favorable market conditions, various mobile banking and payment initiatives have been launched in recent years and it is estimated to have a lucrative market for mobile payment and banking services.

In year 2006, Mobile Money International Berhad has developed the MMWallet as a mobile payment system. It can solve the limitation created by cash, cheques and credit cards. The applicants can use the mobile phone to consume goods or service whenever they wish to do so through the MMWallet. It is also a must for user to either have a saving, current or credit card account with participating bank. However it is safer than other online paying as the user is not required to give out their credit card information.

Electronic currency - BitPass

is a micropayment service that facilitates online content access transactions by integrating the processes involved in buying and selling content, and making it practical to charge very small amounts of money. In the BitPass system, transaction fees are paid by the content provider. Micropayments are by definition very small sums, so the fee is usually just a few cents. For the content buyer, the BitPass system works similarly to a pre-paid telephone card: you sign up for the service and put money into your account using a credit card or PayPal, which gives you credit towards the purchase of content. When the user agrees to pay the cost of access, their account is charged automatically rather than through a link to an external Web site for payment.

Doug Knopper

was an online payment system for digital content and services. Kurt Huang was a co-founder; Doug Knopper was hired as CEO in November, 2005. Bitpass was a California corporation with headquarters in Silicon Valley. It was founded in December, 2002 and partnered with major technology and financial services companies such as Microsoft, PayPal, the Royal Bank of Scotland and First Data.

On January 19th, 2007 Bitpass announced that they were shutting down, and operations officially closed on January 26th, 2007. Bitpass sent out an email to users saying it was closing Jan 26 (see below).

Dear Valued Bitpass Buyer,

We want to thank you for your past business, however due to circumstances beyond our control, we are discontinuing our operations.

We have partnered with Digital River to provide operational support during the period prior to shut down. As of today, January 19, 2007, all Bitpass Buyers with US dollar denominated accounts are being notified that they will have seven (7) days to spend any amounts that currently exist in their Bitpass Account.

During this seven day period, US Buyers will not be able to further fund their account.

On January 26, all US Bitpass Buyer accounts will be closed and Digital River will begin the process of refunding all unspent monies to the accountholder.

All account records and materials will be retained for 60 days and available upon request.

Again we would like to thank you for your business and support.

Matthew Graves
Chief Operating Officer
Bitpass Inc.

Credit Card Debt: Causes and Prevention

What is Credit Card?
A credit card is a system of payment named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. In the case of credit cards, the issuer lends money to the consumer (or the user) to be paid later to the merchant.


What is Credit Card Debt?
Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through ISO 7810 plastic credit cards. Nowadays, credit card debt is a burgeoning problem for many people. A lot of people use credit cards as a "crutch."


Causes

Financial Over limit

The downside to credit card debt is that the interest rates alone can force the average person or family to eventually have to rely on bankruptcy. If they can't afford something they really want, they charge it. Then when it comes time to paying the bill they pay the minimum amount due (very bad thing) only. This then accumulates an awful amount of interest and the next month when you get your bill, the balance is about the same.

Poor money management

Another factor related to student credit card debt is one's attitude toward money. Teenagers experience "premature affluence" because of their high levels of discretionary income and almost no bills. Some teens may become used to a certain lifestyle and not know how to adjust when bills increase in college. Further, some students may be accumulate debt because they believe that their current financial situation is temporary and that short-term debt will be easily repaid and is not a problem. Students may be willing to tolerate debt so that they can maintain the comfortable lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

Prevention
Excessive credit card debt can cause a poor credit rating, bankruptcy and subjection to high annual interest rates. However, if you manage your credit card well, you can avoid these problems. Simple preventions will keep the savvy card holder from such dangers.


Stop debt growing
If debt is growing, there are four things card holders can do immediately:

1. Move debts to the lowest interest rate available. Remember, a card holder with a good credit rating can always ring and ask the credit card company for a lower rate at any time.
2. Prioritize paying off the most expensive debt first, so interest is kept to the minimum.
3. Assess their situation fully, work out their income and expenditure, and total their debts and assets.
4. Take this information to a professional body offering free debt advice.


Payment protection
In fact, spending on a credit card is borrowing money. Some cards offer payment protection insurance, but premiums are often high and the conditions of payout complicated. The best insurance against inability to pay is to pay as much as possible, as regularly as possible, and limit unnecessary spending. If a card is too tempting, only take cash when shopping. Try to double up on the payment and when you get extra cash, rather than spend it, apply that towards the principal.



Get professional help
There are plenty of debt consolidation firms offering to help, but do bear in mind these companies ultimately make money from a card holder’s debt. There are four main agencies that offer free, impartial advice for those in debt: the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Consumer Credit Counseling Service, National Debt line, and Pay plan. These are non-profit making organizations that guide those in debt through the options available to them.