Shopee Malaysia - Shopee Guarantee

What is Shopee Malaysia?

It is a mobile application platform designed for buyers and sellers to perform business activity safely online. 

What is Shopee Guarantee?

A function designed by Shopee to protect users from online scams and frauds and mediates the process of buying and selling. It is a secured payment system where payment to seller is hold until buyer has confirmed in receiving the goods.   

How Shopee helps?

For Sellers

- Sellers ship out products after Shopee has verified buyer’s confirmation of order.

- Shopee acts as mediator for issues raised by buyers.

- Shopee handles refunds or returns of orders.

For Buyers

- Pay to seller only after order is received.

- Shopee solves issues faced by buyers.

- Shopee bans unlawful or unethical sellers from the platform.

Below is an illustration on how Shopee works

If you are a relatively new e-commerce buyer or seller online, and afraid of being a victim of online fraud, try using this application to help secure your business transactions. With the advantages and protection it has, you will experience a lower chance of involving in a fraud or scam.  

Source:

Milo, E. (2016). Shopee Malaysia prevents scams with Shopee Guarantee. eCommerceMILO News. Retrieved 15 September 2016, from 

http://news.ecommercemilo.com/2016/02/shopee-malaysia-prevents-scams-with-shopee-guarantee.html

Helpful Tips for Online Shoppers

Verify the legitimacy of website.

Check the website's URL see if it involves “scam” or “fraud” in other sources. A slight change in URL are often made to represent as legitimate website. Spend time to do some research of the business if you're unsure about it.    

Know who you are dealing with.

When you’re dealing with sellers that have little or no selling history, Google search on the image and search for others that dealt with them before. A genuine seller would not hide their identity or information. Use a service that you know and trust.

Beware of offers that sound too good to be true.

Don't be tempted by offers that are low in price, especially when the seller contacts you directly. Think twice, if the offer is unbelievably low price and you doubted, chances are it probably is a fraud. Weigh the quality of item versus price paid.

Beware of phishing websites.

Don't merely sign up on websites to enjoy great deals, or agree to update account details as requested, your credit card details would then be disclosed. Double check the source before providing your personal information.   

Beware of social media sites' sellers.

Photos posted might not be from legitimate accounts. If sellers failed to ship the product promised or don’t respond, it is a scam. Call up the seller or stop buying from them again in future.

   

Check for refund or return policies.

Read the terms and conditions carefully, check if the policies sound fair. It should contain a list of process to handle disputes or cases for customers' reference. 

Check item’s description properly.

Read on every description carefully. Always ask seller questions if unsure of anything. If spotted difference in the description from the genuine product it claimed, you shouldn’t proceed to buy it.

Read website’s feedback section.

Feedback section provides real time and honest comments from previous buyers. Check the product ratings, comments on service, or any dissatisfaction based on their experiences.

Pay using secured payment service.

Paypal or URL with “https” indicates a secured payment site. Avoid using virtual currencies, wire transfers, money orders, or international funds transfer. There's risk of inability to recover back money once sent since the protection differs from other transaction methods. 

Opt for “cash on delivery” payment. 

Inspect and pay after receiving the goods. It is more secured than transferring money online. Check if item matches with the description online. 

Follow the tips above and be sure to share it with your friends and family around! Be safe, be smart, avoid online shopping fraud from happening to you!  

Sources:
1. Online shopping scams. (2015). Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Retrieved 20 August 2016, from
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/buying-or-selling/online-shopping-scams
2. Online shopping fraud. (2010). Action Fraud. Retrieved 10 September 2016, from http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-online-shopping-fraud
3. Protect yourself from scams. (2015). Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Retrieved 10 September 2016, from
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/get-help/protect-yourself-from-scams
4. Manolescu, D. (2014). 6 Essential Tips on How to Prevent Online Shopping Fraud. E-crime Expert Blog. Retrieved from
https://ecrimeexpertblog.wordpress.com/tag/prevent-online-shopping-fraud/

Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transactions) Regulations 2012

Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transactions) Regulations 2012 is a regulation under Section 150 of the Consumer Protection Act 1999.

A person who operates a business for the purpose of supply of goods or services through a website or in an online marketplace, we named it as “Online Seller”. “Online Marketplace” means a website where goods or services are marketed by third parties for the purpose of trade. While “Online Marketplace Operator” means a person who provides an online marketplace. For example Lazada, 11street, eBay, Lelong, Zalora, Groupon etc. 

Disclosure of Information

Based on this regulations, online sellers need to disclose the following information on the website where their online business is conducted. Failure to disclose the following information is an offence. 

Section 3(3) stated that any person who discloses or provided any information as specified in the schedule that he knows or has reason to believe is false or misleading commits an offence. 

Rectification of errors and acknowledgement of receipt

The online seller shall

• provide the appropriate means to enable the buyer to rectify any errors prior to the confirmation of the order made by the buyer; and
• acknowledge receipt of the order to the buyer without undue delay

Maintenance of Record

Any online marketplace operator shall take reasonable steps to keep and maintain a record of the names, telephone numbers and the address of the person who supplies goods or services in the online marketplace, for a period of two years.  

"This regulation is a good move to protect online shoppers although online sellers may incur higher start-up and operation cost. In my opinion, it is a “win-win” situation. If online sellers are complying with this regulations, it will create a trust to online shoppers and boost their online shopping confidence thus it increase sales of online sellers. However, some of the requirements of this regulation are not clear. It does not specify what are the term and conditions should include on the website. It should avoid online sellers 
setting terms and conditions that unfavourable and not 
fair to online shoppers”.

Source: Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transactions) Regulations 2012 

Case of Online Supplier Fraud

According to The Star online news (2016, September 6), there is a group of students being scammed by an online supplier with a total amount of RM1 million. The online supplier sells the smartphones for this group of students at very cheap price and then these students resell the phone to their friends.

One of the victims Natasha said she got to know the supplier through the mobile application WeChat. Natasha said that the products shown to her looked authentic but were sold below the market price. 

The supplier asked those students to pre-order the cheap smartphones. After several orders and good response from customers, this group of students handed the supplier about RM45,000. In July, the business ran into a problem when the supplier said there was no more stock and did not entertain their calls. The case goes worse when they realise the supplier deactivated the website and could no longer be reached. They had handed few hundred thousand to that online supplier and threaten by their customers now because they are unable to return the money for customers. 

“There are a lot of newspaper reports and victims share their story of online purchase fraud to create public awareness. However, people still easily fall in this type of scam due to the cheaper price offered by the seller. The online business environment and advance in technology make those authorities difficult to track all these types of scams. In order to avoid these scams, consumers self-regulatory is very important.”

Source: 

Ng, S. & Rahim, R. (2016). Students left in the lurch after phone deal goes sour - Nation | The Star Online. Thestar.com.my. Retrieved 10 September 2016, from http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/09/06/students-left-in-the-lurch-after-phone-deal-goes-sour/     

Fraud Case of A Baby Stroller

Here is a real case scenario of a housewife that happened to buy a baby stroller from an online seller on Facebook. 

The stroller was sold in a comparatively cheap price, and seller also offers a friendly service by being responsive towards messages from customers. Apparently, the Facebook page has over thousands of "Likes" too. Hence, the housewife sort of trusted the seller as genuine and proceeded with a full payment.

As the seller promised, the stroller would arrive in a week or two. After weeks of waiting, the stroller still hasn't arrived. At first, the seller claimed it was stucked at the customs, few days later claimed it'll arrive in a couple of days time. After another week passed, still no news from the seller. The buyer then called, texted the seller through Whatsapp and Facebook, yet there is no response at all. The seller still actively updates her Facebook page, reply to other buyers' comments, but solely ignores the housewife's messages. Messages posted on the wall of the Facebook page has also been deleted by the seller. 

The housewife started to sense something isn't going right and asked for a refund. Below are some of the snapshots posted by the buyer from the conversation with the seller.

Part 1: 
Buyer asked for refund, seller threatens that she would delay the refund if buyer continues to spread negative word about her business on Facebook.   

Part 2:

Seller mentioned to release a summon against the buyer for defamation.  

After weeks of disputes, the buyer decided to lodge a report to the Consumer Claims Tribunal by showing all the transaction details, threatening text messages from the seller as proofs. The seller then was intimidated and refunded back the money to the buyer. 

"It is a wise decision for the housewife to raise her case to the ears of the Consumer Claims Tribunal court instead of continuing the disputes with the seller. The seller couldn't sue the housewife for defamation because firstly, the seller isn't a public figure, even though posts were made to rant about the dissatisfaction, however the housewife didn't disclose the name, picture or any direct information about the seller. Those comments were also truths and facts on how the seller has been reacting towards the case. It is important especially being a buyer                                  to fight for our rights when we know we have been scammed."

Legal Protection for Online Shoppers Part2

Consumers need to be protected from unfair trade practices such as the sale of defective products, false advertisement, false description of goods, misleading price and etc. Those consumer protection laws should evolve with the innovation of ICT.

Consumer Protection Act 1999 was amended in 2007 to cover electronic commerce transactions. This act protects consumers from misleading and deceptive conduct, unfair trade practices and false representation.  

Section 187 to 204 of Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 contains provisions on consumer protection. The provisions make it obligatory for network facilities or service providers to deal reasonably with consumers and adequately address consumer complaints (Jayabalan, 2012). 

Electronic Commerce Act 2006 merely provides legal recognition of electronic messages in commercial transactions, the use of the electronic messages to fulfil legal requirements and to enable and facilitate commercial transactions through the use of electronic means (Amin & Nor, 2013). The enactment of this act is to follow suit in implementing the UNCITRAL model law. However, this act does not cover consumer protection.

“In my opinion, Electronic Commerce Act should contain the provision on the safety of electronic transactions to protect consumers. Although cyber laws and consumer protection law have been enacted in Malaysia in line with the development of the cyberspace but exploitation of consumer’s vulnerability to unfair trade practices continues. Other than laws that protect consumers, there should have more legislation to govern online sellers. Authorities need to ensure the credibility of the online sellers. All the online sellers must follow the Consumer protection (electronic trade transactions) regulations 2012. 

Sources: 
1. Amin, N. & Nor, R. (2013). Online shopping in Malaysia: Legal Protection for E-consumers. European Journal Of Business And Management, Vol.5(No.24).
2. Jayabalan, S. (2012). E-Commerce and Consumer Protection: The Importance of Legislative Measures. 16 JUUM 93 – 101.

Legal Protection for Online Shoppers Part1

Have you shopped online before? Are you feeling safe when shopping online? We would like to share some legal information for online shoppers. 

Computer Crimes Act 1997 (CCA) addressed offences relating to unauthorised access, unauthorised modifications and wrongful communication. To some extents, CCA protects online shoppers with regard to a security of online payment.

As consumers shop online, their personal information is easily misused by the third party. Personal Data Protection Act 2010 regulates the processing of personal data involved in commercial transactions. This act protects individual personal data from being processed or disclosed without the person’s consent. 

Digital Signature Act 1997 protects consumers by providing a means for secure online transactions by using digital signatures.

There are more laws and regulations that protect online consumers will update in next post. Please stay tuned. 

“Consumers unable examine the products when they buy online. They are more vulnerable compared to traditional buyers. Thus, laws and regulations that govern online market are very important to protect consumers. The borderless online business environment makes the implementation of laws become more difficult. The local law may not be sufficient to protect consumers from cross-border online transactions. Therefore, harmonisation of legal standards among countries is important to ensure adequate protection for 
the consumers and increase consumer confidence when shopping online.”