Electronic Auction is a procurement tool which utilizes web-based technology to enable bidders to participate in dynamic and transparent pricing events. It has various forms such as English Auction, Reverse Auction, and Dutch Auction.
Although online auctions constitute one of the most successful Internet business models, auction fraud has become the largest component of all Internet fraud which are: 1) Failure to deliver, 2) Misrepresentation, 3) Shill bidding, 4) Selling black-market goods. 
Here things to be take note to avoid online auction scams and related fraud:
1) Develop a familiarity with the product you want to buy. Search for the product online and verify that the specifications and seller photos are accurate, noting the photo caveats below. Compare the information to the original merchant site if possible.
2) Put the sellers' feedback in perspective and instead look at the big picture. How long has the party had an auction account? Are past purchases of similar value or is this a sudden high-ticket item? Is it a business and where is the seller located? These are some of the questions relevant to avoiding online auction scams and affects how readily you are protected.
3) Many sellers and auction enthusiasts will alert the public on how to avoid online auction scams for a particular product. To minimize the risk of landing a fake, look for an established dealer and/or a certificate of authenticity from a third-party.
4) Deal with sellers that are covered by a Buyer Protection plan such as Square Trade and PayPal, but note the monetary limits and the fine print. These are not failing proof coverages and recovering your money may take weeks to months. For lower cost items it is likely sufficient. For higher ticket items consider an escrow arrangement if you have any doubts.
5) Keep your transaction information. Keep your own record of the transaction when you're buying. You want a record of the seller's identification, the item description, emails sent and received, plus the time, date and price of your bid.
6) Passwords. Never have the same password on your eBay and PayPal accounts or i
ndeed on any other financial or personal site. Change your passwords every 30-60 days on both eBay and PayPal.
To report Internet fraud, you can contact the Federal Trade Commission: (877) FTC-HELP (877-382-4357 or www.ftc.gov). You can also contact Internet Fraud Watch(www.fraud.org).
Wednesday 2 July 2008
Things to note to prevent E-Auction fraud
Corporate Blogging
As similar meaning to Weblog, the corporate blogging is a corporate online journal which published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Mostly it has categorized into 2 major types which are internal and external. The corporate blog always assists an organization become expert in it own field and provides important information about their industry and product or service that their readers and customers will find useful. 
Form different than other corporate online journal; Kodak is more concentrate on sharing view, opinion, feels from it employees and customers. Kodak blog is always full of colorful picture, letting people to upload the pictures from their journey and sharing their own experience, mind, and feeling on particular journey. This enables the consumer to know the quality of photos of Kodak. Therefore, they will have more confidence on Kodak.
Pros of corporate blog:
-> Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.
-> People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits.
Cons of corporate blog:
-> It can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office.
-> There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.for additional information:
Review a local e-commerce site:
Blooming Florist began operations in 1981. Through the years, it has grown from a small retail shop to its present set-up of six retail outlets in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur and a head office in Kelana Jaya. Today, besides being linked with most reliable florist throughout Malaysia, Blooming is also networked with 75,000 florists worldwide through its membership in Interflora Pacific Unit Limited. Customer around the world can visit to this website http://www.blooming.com.my/ to order and buy their products.
Currently, the website offer products such as flowers (hand bouquet, potted flowers, basket arrangement, artificial flowers arrangement, and dried flowers), gifts, hampers, fruit basket, chocolates, wine, cakes and cookies.
E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies
E-government in Malaysia:
E-government describes the use of information and information and communication technology (ICT) to support the operations of government. Egovernment
most often is associated with computer applications and the Internet and the World Wide Web, but also encompasses other ICT applications, such as cellular
telephone, satellite communication and geographical information systems.
E-filling:
According to relevant source, printed tax return forms will not be issued to taxpayers who used the e-Filing system in 2007. LHDN encourages taxpayers to continue using thee-Filling system in 2008 with the ownership of a digital certificate.
Problems encountered:
Low intention to use this e-system among tax payers: There are some of the problems that encountered by consumers. Some tax payers, especially those elderly employees, they might be computer literacy and thus do not know how to use this system.
Little knowledge: Since the implementaion of e-Filling system so far was just few years, therefore it is undeniable that consumers might have little knowledge about it.
Do not have proper guidance: When they encounter problem, usually they do not have a correct guidance from those who are in-charged of it. When this occurs, usually consumers will lose their confidence in submitting tax return via e-Filling system.
Ways to improve:
Privacy and security: To encourage more citizens to use the e-government applications and hence adapted to them, Government should concern about the privacy and security issue involved. Usually, e-government appliction such as e-Filling system will require users to fill in their personal details, financial backgrounds and so on. The system should make sure that all the key in information would not be leaked out.
Creating the infrastructure to support e-government: There should be a good infrastructure to support the e-government application. As a conceptual foundation, policy architecture must be developed and set in place, including sets of goals, objectives, guiding principles, models and standards. By then, users would be have more understanding the intention behind each application.
Friday 27 June 2008
Mobile Payment
Mobile Visa Wave Payment Pilot is the first credit card payment pilot system for the Visa
International, in collaboration with Maybank, Maxis Communication Berhad (Maxis) and Nokia. Consumers who are both Maybankkard Visa cardholders and Maxis mobile phone subscribers will have qualify to use this system.The backbone of the mobile payment system is Visa Wave smart card technology. The technology is equipped with sophisticated radio frequencies that eliminate the need to swipe credit cards into a reader. Mobile Visa Wave Payment can be made across all merchants in Malaysia that have Visa Wave-supported terminals. No change is required to the current acceptance infrastructure.
Although it has favorable market conditions, but it is yet to achieve widespread acceptance. To date, there are only 1.8% of the 25 million mobile phone subscribers in Malaysia. Therefore, certain steps need to be taken to encourage consumers to adopt this payment system.
There are still many people yet to favorable and even don’t know with this payment system. So, the advertising activities for the M-payment system should much more attractive and interesting. The system should also attract more merchants to join this system. When this system is wider use in the whole country, the consumers will be more easily to accept and adapt to this system. However, the security provided by a system is always the main barrier for a consumer to accept those systems. The M-payment system should have great anonymity and privacy to protect consumers’ personal information and purchase records.
For additional information about the mobile payment system available information in Malaysia & other country: 
1) http://www.mobile-money.com/
2) http://www.squidoo.com/mobillcash-pay-by-mobile-phone
3) www.mobilepointview.com/mobile_payments/
Thursday 26 June 2008
Electronic Currency
Electronic currency refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. One of the web services that provide the use of electronic currency as a transit payment system is PayLoadz.
PayLoadz (http://www.payloadz.com/) is a privately held company based in New York, NY. With over 70,000 merchants selling over 400,000 digital goods, they are a clear leader in the space of downloadable goods eCommerce. It is a service which not only provides the means to sell intangible products such as software, e-books, digital art, manuals, article and other files, but also manages the transaction through eBay and provides the server space to store the files. PayLoadz is an automated deliver service which means that the seller can go on vacation without worrying about sending download links to customers every time a payment is made. This files can be either downloaded via hyperlink or send via e-mail based upon seller’s product.
PayLoadz has launches a new PayLoadz Express Service (http://express.payloadz.com), which is the biggest enhancement to its services since its launch in 2002. The new service provides a simple way for anyone, even inexperienced sellers, to begin selling products without a learning curve. Before the launch of PayLoadz Express service, anytime a person wanted to sell a file would have to register for a service, install complicated scripts or program their own solution. Now, with the new system, a person simply fills out a few fields, uploads his/her file and he/she is instantly selling her goods. The system relies on PayPal for payment processing and the standard PayLoadz service backend to handle the file delivery.Wednesday 25 June 2008
Credit card debts
Credit card has commonly been used in our life, not only adult but also for students. However, there are many users facing credit card debt problem. Credit card debt results when a client of credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he has spent.
So here goes: Your top 4 causes and preventions of debt!
1. Poor money management:
Most of us didn’t have a monthly spending plan which is essential. Without one we have no idea where our money is going.
Planning is no more difficult than writing down our daily expenses and income and reconciling the two in monthly basis, in order not to exceed the credit limits.
2. Financial illiteracy:
Many people don’t understand how money works and grows, how to save and invest for a rainy day or even why they should balance their checkbook caused them having credit card debts.
Nonetheless, you are responsible for your life and your money. Financial mistakes are increasingly expensive and complicated to resolve. Get educated and get in control!
3. No mon
ey communication skills:This cause mostly refers to couple. Many people didn’t communicate with their spouses or children about financial planning. Some of them even found that their spouses have racked up thousands of dollars in a credit card debt and they had no knowledge about the existence of the card.
Consequently, it is important to communicate or discuss with your spouses and children about the financial goals and spending styles. Sometimes, you also may want to map out a strategy for you both to get what you want. Know what credit accounts you each have and promise each other to be honest about what each other spends.
4. Saving too little or not at all:
People in modern life have less saving especially for the users of credit card. They have no preparation for unexpected expenditures for instance: a job layoff or divorce which will cause immediate financial strain and increase debt.
To avoid unwanted debts, having saving for three to six months of living expenses is essential. No one has ever regretted having a savings pattern.
Look before you leap!! Good Luck!!
The application for pre-paid cash card for consumers
2. load Globe/Touch Mobile prepaid mobile phones. Your mobile phone number has to be linked/enrolled with your BPI Express Cash card.
3. inquire account balance, withdrawing cash, and for getting a mini statement .
Friday 20 June 2008
How safe is our data?
Nowadays, we as internet users used to online everyday and expose more of our personal information on social networking Web sites and office workers upload more sensitive data to online software programs. However, there are vast cyber attacks which fall under several general categories: accidental actions and malicious attacks-computer viruses, denial of service attacks and distributed denial of service attacks. A third area of cyber vulnerability, online fraud, comprises issues such as identity theft and data theft.
Computer hackers are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to pry that information loose. In many cases, they're devising small attacks that can fly under the radar of traditional security software, while exploiting the trust users place in popular business and consumer Web sites.
A case from Florida: In January 2001, the entire municipality of Largo lost e-mail service for over a week when an unknown company based in Spain compromised its identity. The company hacked into the city’s e-mail relay system to steal the Largo.com identity. Soon enough, e-mail spam from Largo.com addresses flooded the net, and many Internet Service Providers blacklisted all incoming and outgoing electronic messages from the city.
Social networking sites (MySpace and Facebook) are favorite targets, as a successful compromise gives attackers access to a large number of people who are likely to trust the sites. These sites often expose confidential user information that can then be used in attempts to conduct identity theft or online fraud. Moreover, our newest technical fascinations—iPhones, Internet calling systems, and smart phones—all might present tempting targets in 2008.
So ladies and gentlemem, please be careful yo~
Table 1. Site-specific Vulnerabilities. Source: Symantec Corporation
During the last six months of 2007, 11,253 site-specific cross-site scripting vulnerabilities were documented, compared to 6,961 between February and June in the first half of the year.
Thursday 19 June 2008
The application of 3rd party certification
There are various types of SSL Certificate Authority that are available in Malaysia. VeriSign is one of them which enable security of e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the leading security protocol on the Internet. It is a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the internet. SSL is widely used to validate the identity of a Web site and to create an encrypted connection for sending credit card and other personal data.
Customers merely want to protect themselves. But how can they rely on SSL for assurance that they are doing business with valid organization and not an un-trusted third party?
To solve their problem, VeriSign have some sub-system program (Asset Layer Protected) to support the overall system work.
Customer Protection
A trusted provider provides an Easy-to-use authentication and transparent fraud detection to protect online transactions without slowing down the transactions.
Brand Protection
Domain names, Web sites, and digital logos present the company’s brand. Early detection and fast response to misuse preserves brand equity and helps stop counterfeiting.
Web Site Security
It gives consumers the confidence to transact online by displaying the green address bar in the latest high-security browser with Extended Validation SSL on the Web site.
Network Security
An authentication solution for the enterprise, Web applications, and e-mail combined with comprehensive network protection that helps reducing risk while meeting compliance requirements.
Expert Assistance and Intelligence
Security consulting and advanced intelligence reporting that help consumers assess analysis and update a layered approach to secure business assets.
Supply Chain Visibility
Provides convenience to large retailers and suppliers when they need to open networks to partners, affiliates, and customers to enhance services and speed operations while keeping confidential data secured.
VeriSign believes that by increasing trust, transaction can be increased. Thus, its mission is “Providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce through our Digital Authentication services and products”
VeriSign security experts help balance risk, cost and users’ experiences to apply the most effective security approach to users’ unique business. By this, it can increase the consumers’ trusts. It secures over 750,000 Web servers worldwide, including 93% of the Fortune 500 and the world’s 40 largest banks.
