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

Auction is market mechanism which buyers make bids and sellers place the staring offers. It is characterized by the competitive and dynamic nature by which the final price is reached. Auctions can rapidly disposal of items that needs liquidation or a quick sale, they offer trading opportunities for both buyers and sellers that are not available in conventional channels and they ensure cautious execution of contracts.

Types of auctions are traditional auctions, electronic auctions, dynamic pricing, English auctions, Yankee auctions, Dutch auctions, free-fall auctions, sealed-bid first-price auction and sealed-bid second-price auction. The most popular type of auctions is an electronic auction (e-auctions) which means auctions conducted online. The most popular e-auction website in Malaysia are eBay.com.my, Lelong.com.my, and so on.

Things to take note to prevent those e-auction fraud are:
- View carefully the sellers' post selling record by viewing the seller's profile and feedback from his or her post transaction records.

- Know the e-auction website precedure and regulation. Find what obligations you have as a buyer, and what obligations the seller has before you make a bid. Seller will not liable to help you if you do not follow proper prevention measures.

- Do not simple expose your personal data such as user name and password, credit card numbers, bank account numbers and others.

- Strongly request the seller to do self delivery where both parties will be able meet up face to face and complete the transaction. In other words, it can be said Cash On Delivery. If the seller is stay other states, request the seller to give you the tracking numbers of the posted item from postage companies in order to track the status of the item will be sent.

- To protect sellers, a friendly warning for first-time nonpayment. A sterner warning is for second-time offense, with a 30 day suspension for a third offense and an indefinite suspension for a fourth offense.

- Check the item physically for damage and internal failure of some electronic items or collector items.

Review a local e-commerce site

Nowadays, there are many local e-commerce website in Malaysia. Lots of company or organisation starting to use website to do the business and gain revenues through Internet. Examples of local e-commerce websites are http://www.lelong.com.my/ ,

http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/ ,
http://www.neowave.com.my/ ,
http://www.airasia.com.my/ and so on.


Among this website, the http://www.airasia.com.my/ is the websites that i always visit.


http://www.airasia.com/



This website is provided by Airasia Berhad. The purpose of creating the website is to bring convenient to customers. Customer can make online flight booking without enter to the Airasia counter.
In the websites,there are many information provided. For example are the latest promotion of the flight tickets, attraction destination details, hotels details, travel services and so on. Within only a website, customers can catch and grab all the latest information to fulfill their needs.
To visit the website, the customers have to state their current location they situating and the prefferer language in the website.To buy the ticket customers have to become the Airasia before proceed to another steps.
All the instructions is stated to teach customer to make online buying. This will make customer feel more easy when trying to make transaction.Term and condition about carriage also listed to avoid customer become confuse.
The other services that the website provide include:
-- future flight info
-- products & shopping
-- pick a seat service
-- hotel booking, etc.

The design of the website is is nice.The colour use of the page is red which is match with Airasia theme. The arrangement of the icons in website is tidy and will not make customers feel comfortable.This show all the items in the website is well arranged.
Talking about the security to make online ticket buying, the security is quite good and safety. Everyone who want to make booking, he or she have to login. Then choose the desire flight and pay by credit card.While the system use to avoid payment fraud include Address Verification System(AVS) and Card Verification Number (CVN),etc.
After the transaction finish the Airasia will send a mail to inform customer. This such a good local e-commerce website is welcomed by all the users.

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

MoBiLe PaYmEnT:
Mobile payment defined as the process of two parties exchanging financial value using a mobile device in return of goods and services.

Nowadays,the mobile payment become rapidly-adopting alternative payment method – especially in Asia and Europe. Instead of paying with cash, check or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for wide range of services and digital or hard goods.Music, videos, ringtones, online game subscription or items, wallpapers and other digital goods are the examples of the items that can buy through mobile.

The potential for this market is quite big, because it is very convenient to use mobile payment and the users of the mobile users keep on increasing.

The mobile payment providers have a large market share to be grab on. This mobile payment is still new and developing in Malaysia. It has potential to continue to grow as consumer’s confidence on mobile payment increased. Mobile payment providers has most potential for growing

Mobile Money:

Mobile Money is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

Strategies:
@..Educate consumers about mobile payments, how to use and introduce its functions (e.g. bill payment, mobile purchase), and tell them what is the benefits when using mobile payment.

@..Enchance security and confidence to mobile users. This is to provide more secure and safe services for those who use who use mobele payment.

@..Collaborate with more banks and companies to widen the ability to pay via mobile at the same time it helps to increased customer’s satisfaction and confidence.

@..Try to reach anyone,anytime and anywhere.The merchant can now sell to people across town, across the country and take payment around the clock, which is not possible with current payment systems.

@..Provide multi methods for users to make payment .Users can use an IVR, SMS, Mobile Money Website, or even real time Mobile Money Weblink API weblink to make payment.

related link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_payment

http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Corporate blogs are similar to online newspapers, in that they allow companies to tell their audience the latest news on both their industry and company?s products. When properly executed corporate blogs can become the voice of the company, giving you a vehicle with which to establish a direct relationship with your customers and your employees that builds trust and loyalty organically. Currently, all major browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 support RSS technology, which enables readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog. There are several reasons why corporate blogging can become a new marketing communication tool for companies:



1) Build rapport with customers
At this time of writing, there are more than 100 million blogs worldwide. If you publish a corporate blog, you’re giving your customers a channel to interact and get to know your brand and organisation in a format that they’re familiar and comfortable with. Plus, you’ll earn extra points from them because you speak their language.

2) Customer Relationships and Feedback
In every instance, the point of a business blog marketing campaign is to establish a two-way channel for communication between a business and its customers. Corporate blogging gives you insights to what people are saying about your products, your brand, your competitors, your marketing from the comfort of your office chair. These insights come in the forms of comments on your blog or commentary and discussions that take place on other blogs.

3) Increased website traffic from higher search engine rankings
Search engines like new content, especially content that comprises of short paragraphs with many rich and relevant keywords. It's also easy to generate and boost link popularity to your corporate blog. Search engines favour websites with fresh content and ranks your blog higher in search results, which in turn results in a greater number of referrals from search engines to your website and blog. The quicker you start the higher your ranking.

4) Corporate blogs are learning tools for companies
Blogs to be successful have to be updated constantly. Always be truthful. Make sure that the information that you post on your corporate blog is accurate. If you don't know something or are unsure, admit it. Being human reinforces your honesty and credibility. Besidea that, campanies can writing blogs to communicate the latest information about products with customers. Blogs allow comment postings from customers. As a result such technical companies are capturing new information from customers at a faster rate.

5) Small hard dollar cost, higher soft dollar costs
Return on investment is why a company should start a corporate blog now. The hard dollar investment is small. Blog are complex content management run websites. However, a simple blogging tool can be rented for $50/year. The soft dollar investment requires regular postings at least 3 times a week.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Many people are rejected after filling out a credit card application because of poor credit. The problem with this is that a major credit card is needed to make reservations for hotels, motels, car rentals and airline flights. Credit cards are also necessary when placing orders online or over the phone. Does this mean a person with bad credit can't do any of these things? Not if that person has a prepaid cash card.

Prepaid cash card is the card which requires you to load funds into the card and use
that money to make purchases and get cash. Once you have money in that card, the card can be used anywhere one would just like a regular credit card. You are not borrowing money from a bank or other financial institution. The best part of the prepaid cash card is that you can charge to your heart's content and you won't be in debt. The money is yours and once it is out of the credit, you can't spend anymore until you make another deposit or top up. The prepaid cash cards look, feel and work like a credit card but are pre-funded “stored-value” cards and there are no bills. It's the same principle as using a debit card linked to a savings or current account.

The concept of these prepaid cash card can help us control our spending. A reloadable cash card allows us to only spend up to the amount that we have pre-deposited into the account. If you tend to overspend or would like to control our spending then a prepaid cash card could be a good card for us.


One of the prepaid cash card that famous is NEXG card by Ambank. It is MasterCard that can be uses in everywhere in the world. It is very easy to get with RM25 starter pack from any 7-Eleven stores. One can simply start using prepaid cash card when money has been loaded on to a prepaid card by cash at a bank, Post Office, at Payzone or PayPoint terminals, bank transfer, through your employer or even by credit card.


This concept is also applied to another bank which is Maybank. Maybank offers debit card which is similar with prepaid cash card but it is directly deduct the money from your saving or current account. Other bank like Public bank also provided this type of debit card.



Application of prepaid cash card for consumers
- Buying petrol
- Online shopping
- Hotels booking
- Paying bills
- Online ticket booking
- People who travel that refuse to carry too much cash
- Those who cannot get approval of credit cards application
- Person who has poor credit rating or a history of bad debt who cannot get a credit card
- Allows you to set spending limits for you or yo

The Threat of Online Security: How Safe is Our Data?

As the technology advancement has become more complex, the opportunities for the attacker to do attack are increasing. Many online businesses, company website no matter private or public, government agencies and others are facing the crisis being attack. There have two types of threats and attacks around the online society. There are non-technical and technical attacks.
1) Non-technical attack is an attack that uses chicanery to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise the security of a network.
a) Phishing is a broadly launched social engineering attack in which an electronic identity is misrepresented in an attempt to trick individuals into revealing credential. It is also known as THEFT.
2) Technical attack is an attack perpetrated using software and systems knowledge or expertise.
a) Denial-of-Services (DOS) attack
-- An attack on a web site in which an attacker uses specialized software to send a flood of data pockets to the target computer with the aim of overloading its resources.
b) Distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack
-- Attacker gain illegal administrative access as many computers on the internet as possible and uses the multiple computers to send a flood of data packets to the target computer.
c) Viruses
-- It is a piece of software code that inserts itself into a host, including the operating systems, in order to propagate; it cannot run independently, it requires that its host program be run to activate it.
d) Worm
-- It is a software program that runs independently, consuming the resources of its host in order to maintain itself, that is capable of propagating a complete working version of itself onto another machine.
e) Trojan Horse
-- It is a program that appears to have a useful function but that contains a hidden function that presents a security risk.

How safe is our data?
There have a lot of tools that can be used by the users to secure their data. The simplest aspects of network security are access control and authentication. Access control is a mechanism that determines who can legitimately use a network resources and which resources he, she or it can use. Typically, access control lists (ACL) define which users have access to which resources and what the rights they have with respect to those resources.
Once a user has been identified, the users must be authenticated. Authentication is the process of verifying that the user is who he or she claims to be. Verification is usually based on one or more characteristic that distinguishes the individual from others. The distinguishing characteristic can be based on something one knows like password, something one has like token, something one is like fingerprint.
Tokens qualify as something one has. Tokens come in various shapes, forms and sizes. There have two types of tokens such as passive token and active token. A passive token is the storage devices that contain a secret code used in a two-factor authentication system. Meanwhile, a active token is the small, stand-alone electronic devices that generate one-time passwords used in a two-factor authentication system. A two-factor authentication is combining something one knows with something one has.
A biometric system is one of the authentication methods that recognize a person by a physical trait. It identifies a person by measurement of a biological characteristic such as fingerprints, iris (eye) pattern, and facial features or voice. It can identify a person from a population of enrolled users by searching through a database for a match based on the person’s biometric trait. Furthermore, biometric system can divide by two types such as physiological biometrics which the measurements derived directly from different parts of the body and behavioral biometrics which the measurements derived from various actions and indirectly from various body parts.
Another tool that can use is public key infrastructure (PKI). It is using in encryption process. It is the process of scrambling (encrypting) a message in such a way that it is difficult, expensive or time consuming for an unauthorized person to unscramble (decrypt) it.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies.

E-government

The Electronic Government initiative in Malaysia was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It has improved both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the need of its citizens.

The seven projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

1) Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
2) Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
3) Generic Office Environment 9 (GOE)
4) Electronic Procurement (EP)
5) Electronic Services (E-Services)
6) Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
7) E-Syariah

The myGovernment Portal (http://www.gov.my/) act as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and the services for the citizens.

Strategies for Citizen-Centered EGovernment

In looking at these processes, it is possible to envision a range of integrated and coordinated methods, approaches, and strategies to better incorporate users in the development of E-Government services. These strategies are neither complicated nor difficult to implement. They may, however, result in additional costs and effort in the implementation of E-Government services.

1) Comprehensive Plan for User-centered E-Government Services Design
A comprehensive plan for user-centered E-Government services minimally includes identifying the goals of that service; ways in which the service supports other agency/ government goals; managerial structure for the development of the service; target audience(s) of the service; information needs of users that the service addresses; resources available for the development of that service; and time line describing key tasks and responsibilities for the development, implementation, and evaluation of that service.
Most importantly, the plan describes the specific citizen-centered strategies that will be incorporated in the design and operation of the E-Government service under development. Development of E-Government services without such a plan is likely to result in poor quality services with limited capacity to meet user information needs – though a service may in fact meet agency goals of cost reduction.

2) Conduct User Information Needs Assessments
Before the design and development of an E-Government service, governments need to understand how users seek information on a particular topic or issue (strategy); acquire information on a topic or issue (acquisition); solicit expertise (source); and use of that
information (application). Such knowledge enables governments to know how users find and use information, as well as the sources they use. Equally important is understanding how the information is to be used and what specific types of problems the user intends to address with the information. This helps in not only an overall understanding of users’ information behavior, but also identifies potential community partners to assist in EGovernment service delivery and adoption strategies (more on this
below).

3) Understand User Information and Communication Technology Availability, Expertise, and Preference
Developing a Web-based E-Government service that requires a broadband connection, high-end computer, and advanced technology competencies can immediately exclude a segment, or multiple segments, of the intended service population. For example, the Department of Children and Families in Florida, through its services (food stamps, medicare, cash assistance) gateway application Access Florida
(http://www.myflorida.com/accessflorida/), requires that its clients complete the application online. And yet those who qualify for these services are the least likely to own a computer, have access to the Internet, or be conversant in computing and Internet technologies (Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2007). The tension between system developers and designers and user ability to use high-end computing and telecommunications is critical to resolve. A too complex system may not be used at all; a
system that resides on technologies to which the user does not have access will also guaranty failure. By understanding the technology access and capabilities of the various segments of users, governments can develop systems that better meet the needs of users, but also understand the types of training and support users may need for successful engagement of E-Government.

4) Engage Users
Top-down, systems-oriented E-Government services can result in elegantly designed and technically sophisticated E-Government systems that completely miss the intended users’ needs. The top down approach is often less costly than conducting a range of user-based needs assessments and other strategies as outlined in this paper. The products and services that can result from topdown or systems based design can include, for example, lengthy forms that collect unneeded data; services that defy logic in their use and/or access; complicated instructions that simply cannot be accommodated by online applications; and excessive personal data for which the user has not been reassured of privacy and security concerns (to name but a few). All of these types of problems can be identified and corrected by engaging users in the actual design of the service. There are a range of tools and techniques in which governments can engage to develop successful E-Government services such as focus groups and interviews (with experts and users); usability, functionality, and accessibility testing throughout the design and development process; encouraging real-time comments and suggestions about the services being used; log file and transaction log analysis; providing interactive help screens or 1-800 assistance; and developing and adhering to measures and standards of service quality. There are other strategies and approaches, but the key is to include user feedback during the E-Government services development and design phasen phases as well as while the services is in operation- not as an after thought.