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2009-01-15T06:46:00.003-08:00

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Ever Shopped Online???

Ever got CHEATED???

Dunno What to do???

Come to look for US!!!!

WHO are we???

We are here to advise you!!!!!

A short illustration on Ethical issue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JSzKekCzBY

The short video is showing a case that happened between an online blogshop owner and her customers. It shows that issues such copyright,breach of contract,ethical matters could happen to shoppers and owners when dealing online.

Background

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Background

How blogshop came about

Blogs are initially used by people as a form of online diary to write about their personal thoughts and feelings about their encounters in their daily life. As blogs became more popular, it became a niche market for bloggers to make use of their blogs as a mode of selling.

This became a convenient form of shopping method for people who like to shop for things online. It became a more preferred way of shopping overtime, as compared to shopping on online websites such as EBay, without the hassle of converting the currency for payment and. Blog shop owners are also able to get cheaper goods from their suppliers when they purchase the goods in bulk.

Blog shops are also set up mainly due to the improvement in technology and people are finding more advantages in shopping online, rather than visiting the physical store. Blog shop owners are also able to reach out to a wider range and varieties of customer as the Internet is easily accessible to everyone.

As this mean of transaction becomes popular, the number of cases of fraud in the online industry also increases, due to the limited security when dealing with people via this form of media. By securing the mode of transactions, it makes it safe for both the buyer as well as the seller. Some of the methods include accepting only Internet Banking, instead of bank transfers, as there may be cases whereby the seller can deny receiving the payment.

Environment

Blog shops allow people to buy what they want at their convenience. The main idea of blog shops is not having a good-looking website, nor is it about disseminating information. It is more about making money and building good relationships with people.

Blog shop owners usually try to adopt techniques of online shopping without understanding these techniques. The website should satisfy consumer's expectations instead of supporting the shop’s brand name. These blog shop owners should always understand customer’s wants and needs, as well as live up to promises, because those are the main reasons for patrons to come back.

Phenomenon
Blog shops are a virtual form of retail platform that is beyond supervision of the authorities. It is often very difficult to impose regulations on this virtual world.

Therefore, it is common for blog shops to fall prey to hackers who are able to evade the security systems. These hackers will be able to alter the information on these blogs and make demands. Another form of danger is known as identity theft, where hackers break into a merchant's web site and steal confidential information. Computer security has become a major concern for blog shop owners, who deploy countermeasures such as firewalls and anti-virus software to protect their networks from hackers.

There are also incidents where consumers fall prey to blog shop owners, who disappear after they ordered the goods from them. Given the lack of opportunity to examine the merchandise before purchase, consumers are often at a higher risk of fraud on the part of the seller than in a physical store.

Technology involved

Retailers also risk fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or fraudulent repudiation of the online purchase. Another danger is phishing, where consumers are fooled into thinking they are dealing with a reputable retailer, when they have actually been manipulated into feeding private information to a system operated by a malicious party.

Ethical Issues

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Ethical Issues

Before we touch on the explanation of the 5 issues, let us take a look at the survey results that we collated from 40 surveyee, to find out whether they are aware of the issues and if they had taken any action when they experienced any of the 5 issues.

Survey Results (collated from 40 surveyee)

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6
If yes, what actions did you take(if any)?
Surveyee #1
“A team of us wanted to go the police station to make a report but there were insufficient number of people for a 'petition' so in the end there was nothing we can do.”

Surveyee #2
“I did not receive my product after paying..the owner gave me all the rubbish excuses...I post an comment on the site stating the problem happened to me hoping that other dont get treated..”

From the results we have collated, we know that not many are aware of all the ethical issues, so below are the explanations of each issue. Hope it will help you understand them better.

Online Fraud
There are many cases of blog shop owners, who list contacts which are not their actual contacts, for fraudulent purposes. They will then be uncontactable after collecting the money for the purchases and shut down their blog after receiving the payments for bulk orders.

True cases
>http://lylarose.livejournal.com/22531.html
>http://www.sgclub.com/singapore/another_scammer_blogshop_114540.html
>http://basicfashionfolder.blogspot.com/2008/11/fake-blogshops-i-got-cheated.html

Dead buyers
These are people who had previously stated their interest in purchasing certain products from the blog shops, but became missing after the products were reserved for them. This usually happens when the buyer decides to get the product from some other places or decided not to purchase the items at all. As such, they chose to become uncontactable.

True case
>http://flowerpod.com.sg/forums/Dead-Buyers-t34037.html

Breach of contract
Once the buyer confirms an order, they are entering into a legal binding contract. If the buyers cancel/change the order they have breach the contract. Once the seller receives the money and sent out the invoice she/he is entering into a legal binding contract, if she does not post out the goods, she has breach the contract.

True case
>http://forum.asiajam.com/jammers-lounge/3608-shopping-shoplah-com-warning-about-products-2.html#post133050

Copyright Issues
Some people will resort to ripping off the pictures and even descriptions about certain products from other blog shops, for the purpose of selling their own products. This will infringe the copyright issues, as the rights of the pictures belong to the original seller, as it may contain pictures of the model for the original sellers or even the sellers themselves.

Hacker
Intrusion of privacy of customer such as their account numbers, name, address and their order list. They tend to alter customer’s actual orders or may even use the customer’s account number to conduct illegal transactions. Blog shop owners will then have a difficult time trying to resolve the problems by shutting down their website for a period of time to re-maintain the privacy of all their patrons.

Interview

We have also done an interview with a successful blogshop owner who understands more about the blogshop "industry". She has stated a few ethical issues that are mentioned above.

Interview with Blogshop Owner of http://therainbowloft.livejournal.com/

"few fraud cases in this 'industry' right now (:"

"there are many cases of deadbuyers"

"quality of clothes and items not being true to pics"

"some blogshops use other blogshops' photos and crop their heads off or whatever, and use it to sell their own stocks."

From the interview, survey and online research, we have come to know that the 5 common ethical issues are Online fraud, Deadbuyers, Copyright, Breach of contract and Hacker.

Advise to share

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Advise to share

Copyright

Advise to blogshop owner whose rights are infringed:

- injunctions (to stop someone from doing something)
- damages (whether actual damages, as proved, or statutory damages)
- account of profits

An award of statutory damages is a remedy (instead of damages) that the Court may order against the infringing party without the need for the copyright owner to prove the loss he has suffered as a result of the infringement. This is subject to a per-work ceiling of $10,000 and to an aggregate ceiling of $200,000 for a particular action.

Factors in Determining Statutory Damages In determining the amount of statutory damages, the Court is to consider these factors:
- nature and purpose of the infringing act, including whether the infringing act was of a commercial nature or otherwise;
- flagrancy of infringement;
- if the act was done in bad faith;
- any loss suffered or likely to be suffered by the copyright owner;
- any benefit shown to have accrued to the defendant;
- conduct of both parties before and during proceedings;
- the need to deter similar instances of infringement; and
- all other relevant matters.

Taken from http://www.ipos.gov.sg/

Breach of Contract

Advise to blogshop owners who meet deadbuyer:

- Owners can claim damages for the loss of business she could have made with another customer.
- Owners can cancel the transaction without the notification of the buyer who doesn’t pay within the given period of time.
- Owners ban the customer from ordering products if he/she is a frequent deadbuyer.

Advise to buyers:

- Customers can claim damages for the money she/he has paid.
- Accept the fact and never order from the same shop again.

Hacker

Advise to blogshop owners whose email/blog account have been hacked:

- Inform your customers about the incident to allow them to take the necessary action (call the bank to cancel existing credit card and create a new card)
- Honesty is the best policy. Informing your customers will keep the trust between owners and buyers. You will be less likely to lose your customers.
- Call the police
- Call up the website management (live journal, gmail, hotmail, etc) to report your case and get back the account.

Online Fraud

Advise to blogshop owners:

- Request for a clear photo shot of the Money transfer receipt, instead of a scan. It is easier for customers to photoshop a scan receipt.
- Have significant marks on the receipt to help identifying the receipt
- Only allow Internet Banking(IB) or meet ups
- Check frequently with the banks the transaction made to your account. Make sure it tallies with your customers’ receipts. However, it is time consuming.

Other advise

Response
Incident notification – instantly notify the relevant personnel (customers) should there be any incidence occurring to the blog shop. The incident will be followed up, with activity logs and evidence to be kept for prosecution against evil-doers.

Maintaining ethics
The blog shop owner has to be ethical and ensure that the profile and privacy of their customers are kept strictly confidential. This can be done by locking the profiles and private information of the customers, such as the bank account numbers, with a privately secured and encrypted folder. Furthermore, the owner can also make use of a tag board to screen through the private messages left by the customers.

Terms & Conditions
The patrons must accept the terms and conditions laid down by the blogger before carrying out their transactions with the blogshop owner. Blogshop owners must state clearly the terms and conditions to be followed and accepted by its customers.

MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE:
HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

Reflections

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Reflections

Jingxia’s Reflection
Blog shops are getting more and more popular in today’s society. It is a good way for young people to enter into real business industry, also to show their passion in entrepreneurship with a little amount of capital. However, they are facing some problems encountered to blog shops. Such as online transaction safety, blogger ethics, integrity, etc. To run a successful blog shop, the owners should first satisfy the customers with needs, build good relationships with customers and be sure that they give right information on their products. The owners should make sure that the website is protected with software that flight against virus and hackers and make sure that the customer identities are well kept in the database.

Products online are usually cheaper than in physical stores because blog shops help reducing the cost. However, unlike physical stores, customers only know the products through the information given by the owners, customers and owners do not meet each other. This makes cheating and misunderstanding easier. Both customers and owners must play fair, honest and keep to whatever agreement made between them. Those are the basic ethical issues for blog shops to gain a good reputation.

From the project, I learnt that it is never easy to run a business, as we have to watch out for so many things. We need to have knowledge of different fields in order to protect ourselves from unnecessary troubles. Bottom line: Do business with heart not just brain, be fair and ethical.

Yingxuan’s reflection
After doing this assignment, I realize that there are more ethical issues involving online blog shops than I had known before. Although there are countless benefits of online shopping, it can create a thorny situation when the process goes poorly. Most large online retailers are inventing new ways to make fraud more difficult. However, the criminals are constantly responding to these developments with new ways to manipulate the system. Therefore, it is more advisable for online shoppers and sellers to be aware of the most current technology and scams to fully protect your finances.

Another difficulty I discovered during the course of this project when dealing with online shopping is the delivery of the products. Most companies offer shipping insurance in case the product is lost or damaged. However, if the buyer opts not to purchase insurance on their products, they are generally out of luck. Some shipping companies will offer refunds or compensation for the damage, but it is up to their discretion if this were to happen. Therefore, it is important to realize that once the product leaves the hands of the sellers, they have no responsibility.

As such, we can deduce that no matter what form of ways we use to start a business, there will always be pros and cons to it. Therefore, be it buyers and sellers, it is always advisable to understand who and what we are dealing with in order to safeguard ourselves.

Lebbillie’s Reflection
Through this project, I have increased my knowledge on Blogshop and its ethical issues. Right now, the blogshop “industry” in Singapore is growing, especially among the youths. More and more people are shopping online. Though blogshop seems to be a causal way of purchasing things, we are actually entering into a legal binding contract once we confirm the order. Therefore, we got to be careful not to breach the contract.

As the demand is high, some buyers will take advantage of the situation and cheat the seller to gain money, vice versa. Moreover, as transactions are taken place virtually, one’s identity can be hidden easily. This makes it easier for one to behave unethically.

However, I have learnt several ways to prevent you from getting cheated. I feel that the most important way for buyers to protect themselves is to always be careful in which blogshop they are visiting. Buyers should check the blogs’ reputation before purchasing. As for sellers, I feel that they should do constant check on their transactions with the bank before posting out their goods or giving a refund. By taking precautions, we have reduced the chance for one to cheat.

Finally, I believe that honesty is the best policy. Every one of us should act with integrity. This would allow more people to trust online shopping and make it an enjoyable process.

Reference

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References

http://www.ipos.gov.sg/
http://lylarose.livejournal.com/22531.html
http://www.sgclub.com/singapore/another_scammer_blogshop_114540.html
http://basicfashionfolder.blogspot.com/2008/11/fake-blogshops-i-got-cheated.html
http://flowerpod.com.sg/forums/Dead-Buyers-t34037.html
http://forum.asiajam.com/jammers-lounge/3608-shopping-shoplah-com-warning-about-products-2.html#post133050