Review on a post on Legal - Online Beauty Product Fraud

The post basically is about the fraud or problem of making purchases of beauty product online. Over the years, internet has enabled many great buys through online. Besides, there are price comparison companies that help us drill down to the best prices, shipping and tax advantages, and the convenience of no need to leave home.

However, sometimes the deal that looks great falls short of what has been advertised. Communicating dissatisfaction can be difficult through online if compare to face-to-face. In addition, it often takes enormous patience and tenacity to achieve satisfaction.

In the post, it stated that The Star has reported 66 people that were cheated almost RM 73,445 when they performed online purchases of skincare products. Nowadays, because of the improvement of technology, people tend to buy the beauty products through internet. As claimed by them, buying the products through online can help them save the time to go out. Moreover, the price is usually cheaper than buying in shop. Besides, there are some people who do not like to be followed by the salesgirl when they make purchases. Hence, they prefer to buy the products online. And they can also choose the product carefully and take as many times as they want.

Convenience appears to be the main reason women buy online. Of those online beauty product shoppers, 74% say “it saves time” and 70% agree that “it’s easier/quicker to shop online than a store.”

Just because the businessman knows what the consumers are thinking, they can easily attract the consumers by illegal ways, when promoting their products online.

As reported in The Star, the salesman was lured by the advertisement which displayed the price of the items that cheaper than those off the shelf. Businessman may display a very low price in their advertisement, but they may charge many others additional fees (delivery fees) when the items delivered to the customers. While these additional fees may not know by the consumers before they made their purchases.

Improvement in the technology is not necessarily a good thing, especially shopping online. Some of the disadvantages of the shopping online are:

- Inabilities to check out the items physically when you are purchasing. Especially for the low price items, the website might send the products which quality might not achieved the standard.

- Items ordered online are sometimes on backorder but consumer is not always informed until weeks after the purchase is made.

- Consumer not always knowing if a site is a legitimate and safe site to shop.

- Have to pay for shipping costs that far exceed the true shipping rate. They may charge lower price for the items, but charge higher in the shipping costs.

- If there are dissatisfaction, return and exchanges can sometimes be difficult because of lack of face-to-face negotiations. Some websites might even restrict the return or exchange of items. If not, when the items’ quality does not reach the standard, consumer may request for return and make them suffer loss.

- No claim back of money when the product didn’t arrive. Most of the online shopping website is requiring the consumers to make payment using credit card. But, after they received the money, they might never deliver the items to customers, since they already have the money on hand.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is better to buy the products (no matter beauty products or others) at shop. Then we can check out the items physically, no matter the quality or its price. If you are still instead to shopping online, please bear in mind, it is important to make sure that the website can be trusted and it is a legal site.

Example of website that provide shopping online:

http://www.adorebeauty.com.au/adorebeauty/index.asp

http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Legal

http://my.88db.com/my/Services/Post_Detail.page/Beauty/Face_Skin_Care/?PostID=241848

Discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian unversities:

Pros and Cons from student perspective

E-learning systems are a great alternative to traditional way of learning. Due to the advanced technologies, we can bring everything we need in our daily life to our homes: books, libraries, news, clothes and even food! Today, e-learning has been getting more and more popular. Like anything else, there are many pros to e-learning as well as cons.
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Pros of e-learning
The greatest advantage of e-learning is student no need to travel long distances to attend classes at a particular location as eLearning can be conducted anywhere in the world. The courses are carried out over the internet, through online learning management systems, internet char, real-time lectures, webinars etc. This will save student travel cost and time to and from school.
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One of the advantages of e-learning is the flexibility of time. There is no specified time for classes to be executed, such as a particular lecture on a specific day and time. E-learning classes are recorded and post on the websites. Students can download and watch or listen them during their free time. However, there are deadlines for submitting in assignments and reports. Students have to make sure that they submit their assignments and reports by the deadline, in order to get full credit.
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Another advantage would be the students’ ability to study at their own pace. This helps people who may need a little extra time understanding the subject that is being studied. Student can go back and repeat the subject that is having trouble understanding. Besides, some students are faster at learning than others, so this e-learning allows them to be ahead. Projects with a deadline will be assigned and students can finish their projects at whatever time they find feasible within that particular deadline.
Cons of e-learning
First of all, the disadvantage to online learning is that, not all students have self-motivated and discipline to progress through the program in a timely manner. Student can simply being lazy and fall behind the program for week. This makes learning even harder when trying to get caught up with the progress. Students have to make a set plan and stick to it. This is sometimes very hard for student to follow it.
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There is the downside of there being no face-to-face interaction between the student and the instructors. Lack of face-to-face communication with instructors will contribute lack of understanding between student and instructor. Instructors cannot easily understand student’s demands and interests. Besides, instructor may not always be available if student need help. This can be very frustrating if you are not able to understand the subject being studied.
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Another disadvantage of e-learning is problem of proper accreditation. It is importance for those who are seeking employment upon graduation. However, not all e-learning system of Malaysian universities are accredited. Hence, e-learning students need to make sure that university student enrolled is properly accredited and widely recognized.
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In short, there are many pros of e-learning, but there are many cons too, which may require the students to over come it and become a self-organized student.

Related Links:

1. http://ezinearticles.com/?Distance-Learning-Advantages-and-Disadvantages---Not-Everyone-is-Suited-for-E-Learning-Success&id=320610
2. http://www.articlesbase.com/e-learning-articles/pros-and-cons-of-elearning-685765.html

Posted by Qiao Ling

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption stragies

E-Government

E-Government was one of the seven Flagship application introduced by the government with the Establishment of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). It was a combination of Information and Communication Technology working together to enhance the communication linkage between the government and the citizens striving a better accessibility and quality of interactions, making information flows and processes within government, the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement effectively being carried out in the correct time manner.

The seven Flagship Application are:

1.E-Government
2.Multipurpose card
3.Smart School
4.Telehealth
5.R&D Cluster
6.E-Business
7.Technopreneur Development


In acceleration to Vision 2020, the E-Government is being carried out in order to enable team-working with the citizens and Malaysia. The purpose of this project is to ensure information flows and services being delivered to the public in the correct time manner and thus help to improve the responsiveness of government towards citizen's needs and wants.

There are seven sub-projects being carried out under this Main objects and there are :

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

Implementation of E-Government:

1.Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

This is a platform of exchanging ideas, suggesting best alternatives for information management and communication services between the government and citizens to comes out with an efficient and effective system.

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

Helps to standardize the Human Resource Management of the government employees. This is also a platform for recruitment of new freshmen.

3.Generic Office Environment (GOE)

By incorporating a fully integrated, distributed and scalable office environment that maximizes the usage of Information Technology to enable full collaboration between workers, aiming no information delays occur.

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

Aiming to save the time and cost of purchasing materials and making the whole transaction is being carried out transparent to the public. It also encourages suppliers to go electronic and join the K-economy.

5.Electronic Services (E-Services)

A services provided by the government to enable the citizens to make payment thru Internet services, reducing the time and increase the efficiency of the entire progress. One of the successful services introduced is e-filling provided by Malaysia's Inland Revenue Board (IRB).

6.Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)

Enabling the utilization of workforce, helping the peoples to search for job opportunity. Using a systematic managing system to match the job vacancies ensuring everyone gets their desired.

7. E-Syariah

E-Syariah is a government ICT products with helps the Islamic courts involving 111 courts to settle dispute through electronic means.

Citizens Adoption Strategies

There are no doubt that the fast growing of E-Government is getting much more attention form the public. There are fields that government should takes serious focus which might affects its adoption strategies. These fields include the following:

1.Ease of use

The designed websites should be made user-friendly. Everyone who uses it will find it easy to learn and sooner or later the importance of this services can be popular to the public. This can also enhance the customer's satisfactory and the government gain advantages to launch the project as it becomes well-known among the users.

2.Website Designs

The designed websites should contain interesting data or info for the public. Making the website become useful and attractive should be the priority of the government implementation as if the customers who used it found out it to be useful and easy to learn will eventually come back to use the services provided too...

3.User's characteristic

Such characteristics are perceived risk, perceived control, and Internet experience. Experience leads to the continuance usage of the services, the users who are satisfied with the services would likely to return to use the services provided. Perceived risk refers to security and privacy issues of the Internet while perceived control is to ensure that citizens can transact online securely and their personal information will be kept confidential.

However there are barriers such as language barriers, lack of public awareness and online behaviour but these are the barriers that can be improved from time being . Lastly, for some extra information, Malaysia ranking in the 5th Waseda University E-Government ranking improve from year 2008 ,from 25th to 22th in year 2009. Viva, Malaysia !


Related Links:

1.http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm

2.http://ecomworld.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/e-government-in-malaysia-2/

3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-government

4.www.elx.gov.my

5.http://www.giti.waseda.ac.jp/GITS/news/download/e-Government_Ranking2009_en.pdf - page 9










Posted by Chee Liat Long