Monday, July 7, 2008

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


Auction are define as market mechanism by which buyers make bids and sellers place offers. It is characterized by the competitive and dynamic nature by which the final price is reached. Seller intended to sell something within a quick timeframe and those example of auction such as 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.

Electronic auctions (e-auctions) are auctions conducted online and most popular nowadays. Sellers are selling the item that sometimes had been using for some while or new things. The most famous e-auction website that familiar by all of us is E-Bay. This site selling the items that sometimes limited edition and the price will be bids by the consumers. Whoever offer the higher price will get to purchase the item.

In order to prevent fraud happen whenever performing auction transaction online, here is the following actions to be effective minimize the fraud.

a)Only purchases from the trustworthiness sites- This is because most of the internet auction fraud cases involve straightforward scams where consumers allegedly win merchandise by being the highest bidder. Everything are going so well until they send the payment and never receive the merchandise that they bid.

b) Refer to the site forum discussion-In order to prevent fraud, users may refer to the site forum regarding their customer perception involving in dealing with particular e-auction site. This is to enhance the details and credibility of the site.

c) Identity verification- User need to key in strong password validation in order to prevent theft by intended personnel. The e-auction site need to provided user ID and password verification so to identify the correct person with their particular information.

d) Always maximize the number of payment options you will accept- Do not making payment of merchandise using the same bank account to prevent easy hacking by other personnel. Users are advice to use several bank payments infrequently.

e)Ranking system are important to check the particular item- Due to the nature of the goods that we can’t see it physically, users have the right to know whether the merchandise are in a good condition and affordable or not. Hence ranking system allow customer to identify the usage of items and the condition whether it is worth to buy. Ranking with the highest one represent the most better and quality goods.

f)Appraisal and evaluate column- This allow customer get to know the respond of particular merchandise in the market. This system provides types of appraisal system and expertise that use to compare the items with the similar one in the recent marketplace.


Better prevention reduced the risk of consumers get threat by unknown e-auction owner. Therefore users need to be smart when dealing online transaction because we are not particular with who we are dealing with.

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