A Walkthrough of Blogshop Scams
April 11, 2009 by admin
Filed under Featured Articles For BlogShop Shoppers
Blogshop started to appear in the world of internet in or before 2004. And blogshop, particular in Singapore, took off in 2008 or even earlier in 2007.
In early days, most people sell in Yahoo Auction as it provided a business platform where bidding and buying is possible with a huge customer base.
When blogging grew in trend, the idea of selling on blog became very popular. Not only setting up a blog is zero investment, it also meant a personalised “E-Store” for many online sellers. Sellers can easily customize the look and feel of their own ’store’ and update their products readily.
With the growing number of blogshops, scams and frauds are inevitable. The absence of a safe payment gateway made immediate payment so convenient through Internet Banking Transfer or ATM Funds Transfer. In another words, cash payments are now faster and easier to obtain.
Between September to October 2007, more than 40 victims reported making payment to seller for cheap jeans or accessories purchased over the internet from nice-spree.blogspot.com and nicespree.blogspot.com for over SGD$6,299. The goods were not delievered and the seller remain uncontactable. The seller was jailed for 24 months.
At the end of 2008, Chantal Ng was reported in the forum as a scammer for shopper-gal.blogspot and shoppingcouture.blogspot (closed) , but on the New Paper in 04 Mar 09, she was interviewd and revealed that she only know about her being flamed online when a friend told her about it.
In 2009 Jan, shopping-rule.blogspot (only for invited readers) which sells contact lens was reported in Cozycot forum. It is Apr now and in my list of researches, there are more to come.
As a matter of fact, we cannot stop scammers. But we can take preventive measures by shopping with reputable blogshops. Thus, if you had a good experience with any blogshops, write it down in the Report Stories section. Spread the words around.
Source:
http://www.asiaone.com/Digital/News/Story/A1Story20090304-126013.html
http://www.spf.gov.sg/mic/2007/071024_internetsellercheat.htm
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