Credit Card Debt: Causes and Prevention

Credit card debt is a burgeoning problem to all. Debt is all around us and getting worse every day. The fact is that through credit card debt is expensive to fund with high interest rate and that there is nearly always some form of credit-usage fee in our account statement. For your information, debt is divided into two groups which are good debt and bad debt. Good debt is such as buying an item like a house or mortgage that will increase in value and followed by bad debt such as 50 “flat screen television you bought on your credit card and are paying the minimum balance on.

The causes of Credit Card Debt
Fact of life
It is that credit card holders do not know how to spend wisely. In other words they would have budget prepared in their life for spending.

“Because they are paying me to do it” policy.
Most of us would put our credit card debt into one debt because the credit card issuer is paying you to do it!! A true fact is that nowadays the credit card company has now become competitive that issuers are fighting among themselves to get sign up to their card.

To Entertain
They are certain people who would use credit card for their entertainment purpose such as clubbing, shopping and holidays. These type of expenses is considered to be unnecessary expenses that should be avoided.

Furthermore, prevention has to be done to avoid credit card debt.
Do not spend more than you actually need.
Money has to spend when necessities only and not for luxurious. Besides that, all the money that you save will get rid of the debt.

Settle down payment in either one of the two ways
a) Take the account with the smallest balance and pay it down first. Try to double the payment due but if that is not possible yet, pay as much extra month that you can afford by achieving the goal of paying the smallest account first, you will become more motivated to continue on your quest.
b) Alternatively, take the account with the largest annual percentage rate and work your plan of attack on this bill first. Again, try to double the payment or at least pay as much extra as you can.

Follow the Plan
Keep following the plan until all credit cards have been paid off. Do not use those accounts again to keep the balances at zero.

Extra Effort
Extra Once your bill is paid off, take that some payment you had been making and apply it towards your next credit card. This extra amount, along with the minimum payment due, will really begin to take a chunk off that balance.

http://www.gobalakrishnan.com/malaysia-credit-card-debt-solution/
http://www.streetdirectory.net.my/travel_guide/149697/credit_cards/6_simple_tips_for_credit_card_debt_help.html
http://www.moneyinstructor.com/art/creditconsolidate.asp

E-Tailing

During those days people tend to shop for goods traditionally from one shop to another. However due to the advancement in technology selling and buying of goods and services can be done over the internet by just a simple click. Those who conduct electronic business online are known as electronic tailers. Electronic markets are the institution that allocates all the resources needed by the demanding parties. Trading over the internet are know to be free trading whereby there is no external planning, selection and decision are made freely, and offers are evaluate based on the individual needs. Furthermore electronic market can be seen as form that connects two substantial infrastructures of our information technology. This mature telemetric form has realized the electronic market whereby they contain supply and demand in the form of virtual information objects which are available equally for seller and buyer all over the world. Furthermore, an electronic market also provides affordable services over the internet. Some of these services include product rating (from magazines test reports or rating agencies), interactive product demonstration (software demonstration program), ordering products from an electronic catalogs and many more.

There are five out of eleven most important electronic market models in retailing. The first model is E-shop. This model mainly focuses on promoting the company goods or services and also the possibly to order and pay, electronically also traditionally. Furthermore there are several benefits provided such as lower prices offered, better information, convenience of selecting, buying and delivering and 24 hours availability. The second model is E-procurement. This model is applied by big company that provide wider choices for supplier that provide better quality of goods, lower cost, and many more. Third is E-auction whereby auction is done on the internet accompanied by multimedia presentation of the goods. Furthermore, it also benefits the supplier and buyers whereby it increases efficiency since no physical movement of goods is needed until the deal is establish. Fourth is E-mall. E-mall is a collection of e-shops with well know brand. Normally it is enriched with guaranteed payment method such as www.emb.ch that gives entry to e-shops. Moreover e-malls reduce complexity and cost to be on the web with sophisticated hosting facilities such as additional traffic generated from other e-malls. The last but not least is third party market place that is suitable for companies that wish to leave the Web marketing. This model works when the third party has something in common and offers at least a user interface to the supplier catalogues such as additional features like branding, payment, logistic and many more.

The internet does not only being used to trade online but also to provide specific services such as the online travel. The online travel provide satisfaction to their customers whereby they can book their ticket online without visiting the travels company and also book hotel rooms in advance. The internet service has made many of the customers to be independent whereby they can take greater control over their traveling plans and also compare prices to evaluate which travels company is offering the best price. For example Air Asia is providing these online services in their specially created website. The internet has left a great impact on the travel industry since the travel industry has to change the way they do business from brick and mortar to online business model. By using the internet the travel industry is providing a new service called the 'dynamic packaging' where consumers put together their own holiday packages by purchasing their flight, hotel, or car rentals separately. In conclusion the internet has change the way business is carried out from traditional to modern way of doing business. However the traditional way is still important as certain consumer prefer face to face meeting before any decision or buying or selling is made.

References:

http://www.electronicmarkets.org/issues/volume-5/volume-5-issue-1/v5n1_schmid0.pdf
http://www.electronicmarkets.org/issues/volume-8/volume-8-issue-2/businessmodels0.pdf
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/63-018-x/2006001/4072207-eng.htm

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

A cash card is a pre-paid debit card that enables the holders to make purchases and have them deducted from the card's available balance. (Defination from Creditor Web). While, others defination of pre-paid card is a payment card such as MasterCard, Maestro, Visa Electron and Amex, pre loaded with your own money, which you can then use wherever the payment card is accepted, including in the internet and on board.

Pre-paid cash card has become more and more important nowadays, since it is convenient, easy to get and easy to carry. When you are using the public transportation daily or even you have your own car, in order to pass the thousand and thousand tolls around Kuala Lumpur, pre-paid card such as touch n Go is a smart choice, it save your time to pay the tolls instead of giving money, sometimes you do not have small change, and same as the toll fees collector, it is quite inconvenient, paying fees by money also waste your time as you need to queue, sometimes the long queue will make you crazy, so using touch n Go somehow is a smart choice.

Some example of Pre-paid cash card: Oyster Card in London, England

The picture showed us that, the British use the pre paid cash card to pay the public transportation fees, Oyster cars is similar with touch n Go in our country, is a travelcard that can be used as a tram pass or annual "bus ticket". The main function of pre-paid cash card is using it when you are taking a public transport, there are many countries in the world have this kind of card such as Octopus in Hong Kong, Ezlink card in Singapore to name a few.

Besides that, a pre-paid cash card such as debit card, can be used to buy the goods you want and pay the bill. You can pay insurance, rental fees, electricity bills and water bills and car payment by using the debit card. UTAR and Public Bank also work together, in order to let UTARian can pay their study fees by using the PB Debit card in UTAR campus by charging RM1 service charge. If you pay the study fees by using bank draft, it had a service charge which costs RM5 and RM2.50 service charge by using online paying (go to any PB branch to pay the student fees). So, having a pre-paid cash card is more cost saving and convenient.

Along with these, you can withdraw money anytime as long as there is a ATM Machine, pre-paid cash card provide this kind of application as well. But, it will cost you a higher service charge. Some of the pre-paid cash cards provide you the service by sending and receiving money via bank wire transfer, between two cards. It is very useful and accepted by most of us since it is fast and easy.

In Malaysia, touch n Go can be used to pay the parking fees in some selected place such as 1-Utama shopping complex, Sungei Wang Plaza, Cyberjaya, KLIA, LCCT and so on. It lead Malaysia to a ticketless packing century, and it is an environmental friendly service. Since, it is ticketless, we can save the paper, save the trees and save our earth. Theme park entrance fees can be paid by a pre-paid cash card too such as Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort, it is the one and only theme park in Malaysia which we can pay the entrance fees by using touch n Go.

Touch n Go -The most popular Pre-paid cash card in Malaysia

Some uniqueness of pre-paid cash card in overseas:

Octopus card is a pre-paid cash card that designed for both tranpost and non-transport purposes. You can use the Octopus card in Hong Kong very many usages. It is a multi-usage card which can pay any fees and buy the products, and it can even be the access card to some selected place such as school.

Ezlink card that designed by Singaporean is a useful pre-paid cash card as well. There are numerous reloading points around and a wide range of channels, that you can top up your pre-paid card easily. You can reload the card in every LRT, MRT stations in Singapore, ATM machine too. Ezlink card has provided a auto top up service that card holders need to earn reward from the respective issuing banks for utilising auto top up, so that card holder always has the sufficient money in the card to travel.

Reference:

1.) http://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/

2.)http://www.what-prepaid-card.co.uk

3.)www.touchngo.com.my

4.)www.hong-kong-travel.org/Octopus.asp

5.)www.ezlink.com.sg

Phishing

Phishing is defined as means of getting private information from user of a particular website by faking authentic website of reputable organizations.

It usually obtain access when it send emails to user and required them to update personal information such as bank accounts, passwords, credit card number, and etc just to name a few. By imitating those reputable organization such as renowed banks, insurance company and etc which usually need user to filled their personal information.

Phishing does this by mimicking other organization;s HTML code, leading to creating mirror website of the organization. Even one is fully equiped with IT knowledge, it cannot ensure that user can detect authenticfication of the website as their are lack of knowledge regarding Phishing.

Recently cases of citizen being lured into withdrawing money to third party account is being reported. The victim received email from reputable bank requested updating of personal information due to inactivation for a period of time. Unexpectedly victim Tey did not suspect anything amiss due to the similarity between the scam website and the reputable bank website.

Following the requested order, he insert all relevant information but realised his account money was being siphoned when bank's management informed him.

Sources from Thestaronline.

In the below, image is example of Phishing used in luring user.

As shown in the image above, link which is being circled will direct user to mirror website of CitiBank, information will be directed to scammer website instead of CitiBank. User being ignorant will only lead to money being forked out of their accounts where it will be too late when they realise.


Being organization that targeted by the phishing issue, Maybank has provided some tips on how to recognize a phishing site which have the conditions as below,

• phone call/email or sms that asking for personal security information


• email link will usually is a unsecure login site which url begin with http where secured login site url should begin with https


• phishing url usually may contain misspelled words compared to the orginal name

Besides, there are several tips to minimize the phishing threat too

• never trust any phone call


• if wanna update personal information, go directly to the company website rather than clicking on directed link


• do not trust random URL or fill in personal information on random website

The Threat of Online Security:How safe is our data?

Due to the reducing rate of security in e-commerce business, many business operators are considering to use back the traditional way to carry out their business. There are many threat and attacks that are worrying most of the e-commerce operators such as client threat, communication channel threat, server threat (such as Web server, Data Based server), Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and many more. However the top five threat that are spreading fast in today’s e-commerce industry are hacking into other computer system, Infection by viruses and other malicious software, staff misuse of information system, theft or fraud involving computer last but not least failure and data corruption.

Out of the five threats infection of viruses and other malicious software shows the highest rate followed by hacking into other computer system. The most recent virus attack on Microsoft Outlook is (The NIMDA, Code Red Worms, the ILOVEU,” Resume” and KAK viruses)In the case of hacking, due to the low security detection and prevention of the website, hackers hack into other business site to obtain confidential information on customers such as their credit card balances and so on.

The Target: The attackers mostly target on the shoppers, shopper’s computer, Network Connection between shoppers and website server and Website Server.

Shoppers: Involve tricking the shopper (also know as social engineering techniques) by reading the shoppers behavior and getting info to be used against the shoppers.

Shoppers Computer: By using a tool called SATAN to perform port scans on a computer that detect entry points in the machine.

Network Connection between shoppers and Website server: The attacker monitors the data between the shopper’s computer and the server. Then he collects data about the shopper or steals personnel information such as credit card number.

Website Server: the attacker analyzes the site to find what kind of software is being use on the site. Then he proceeds to find out what patches are being issued in order to exploit a system without using the patches.

Prevention Steps: Many steps can be taken to prevent the attacker to continuously gain confidential information by hacking into other individual business site. The prevention steps are such as:

Education: The shoppers need to be aware that by using weak pass word it will able the attacker to hack in the computer system to possess all the confidential information.

Personal firewall: Help reduce the various type of traffic initiated and directed to your computer. The intruder can scan the hard drive to detect any stored password.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL): Is a protocol that encrypts data between the shopper’s computer and the site server. Furthermore, a certificate authority authorized by the government will issue SSL certificate that will be issue to the server. When the shopper’s make a request using a browser to the site server using http://..., the particular shopper browser will check whether it has a certificate it can recognized. If it is not recognized it will pop up a warning signal.

Server Firewall: It helps to ensure that request from specified ports only can enter the system and all access are only from certain physical machines.

Password: Pass word should be strong enough so that it cannot be easily guessed. Account lock out capability helps to make sure that an automated schemes cannot make more than few guesses before the account is actually locked.

For Malaysia Company such as Locus they develop and create dynamics transactional web and flow system that is incorporated will all the security needed to transact business online safely. With the expertise and advance technology they posses it enable them to do business online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without any disruption. From my point of view, prevention and detection from online threat is a must. Business operators must pay more attention on this issue or else they will loose their customer trust if shopper information is leak to an unauthorized party. More expertise should be employed in order to prevent the problem from getting worse.

References:

http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2002.994190
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0504_mckegney/0504_mckegney.html

http://www.locus.com.my/ecommerce.asp

How to Safeguard our Personal and Financial data

It is very common nowadays that most of us are would be having thousand of questionnaires on mind that how safe would be our personal and financial information on online websites. Therefore, information related to these had to be notified by all the users of online systems as we live in increasingly online world.

Here are some guidelines for you on keeping our information secured.

Only purchase on trusted sites
When you are dealing online and requiring payment, you are advised to avoid dealing with unknown or small retailers because they might have unsecured payment systems. Be smart, always deal with well known online retailers such as Amazon.com, e-bay or deal with only reputable payment processors such as Pay Pal or Google Checkout.
Order your credit card report
Credit Card Report is the window into your ID security. Please be noted that or alert that you must have an evidence of the payment you made through online system. Print the supporting evidence once payment was made. For example, once we UTAR students have made payment through online, it is advisable that we print out the reference number as a proof of the payment.
Know how to spot Phishing
Phishing is a duplicate of the site you are viewing into. They are the thieves that get your personal information by pretending to be the site you trust. To be safe, when you log in to these accounts, make sure you are not being asked for any information that you easily do not encounter previously when you enter the account.
Secure Your Network
Network is the basic that have to be secured especially when your network is through wireless. Through wireless network you must make sure it is secured by password so that thieves could not access our information or grab it easily.
Set Banking Alerts
Nowadays, many financial information has began to offer email and SMS alert. Please make sure you do subscribe it to ensure that you receive the latest news from them. This would avoid or allow you to easily detect unauthorized access as soon as possible.
Be prepared earlier
As we uncertain events cannot be expected when it will occur. Therefore, it is wise that we always make sure that we safeguard any important documents in a hand copy also.


Additionally, most importantly make sure you use different passwords for different accounts that you access online. This is because when your password for one credit card is found, then it would not enable the intruders to find out or access to your other banking system.

Related links:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/online-safety.asp

http://www.instantestore.com/

http://www.finextra.com/fullpr.asp?id=278

A Review on a post on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

First of all, let me explain what is internet security and some of the types of it. Internet security is When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk… from wikipedia and Information traveling on the Internet usually takes a circuitous route through several intermediary computers to reach any destination computer… from www.ebtco.com, and when we talk about internet security, some of the examples are password, anti-virus software, anti-spam software, security packages for mobile malware (mobile malicious software) and so on. But, this blog I am focus on password.

As what the title is, for the purpose of writing this blog, I have viewed My E-Commerce blog and I am very interested with 1 post which is the “Favourite passwords used online”, I am very sure that, everyone of us knew what is the meaning of password, it is very important and is very “P&C”. I am also very sure, most of the passwords set by most of us actually is just our own birthday. Why I said so, because people around me are, and honestly, I even knew their passwords with their knowledge and they are well with that. Maybe after reading this blog, they will start to change their passwords…haha!

From the blog, I realised that, 16% of the people uses their children, spouse and even their own name as the passwords, 14% who likes to use “1234” or any “easy-remember” figures as password, 4% who uses “password” or “password1” as their “access” to some web pages. So, which categories are you? Luckily I am the 66% who is different with those people in these 3 categories.

In the blog, also showed us that some common passwords that used by people such as favourite cartoon name, “ihateyou” or “iloveyou” to name a few. Again, it is not my style, actually it is quite funny to use these kinds of password, because people who know you might get your password correct easily and log in to your “protected” web pages and a serious consequence might wait for you.

Password has become more and more inportant nowadays, since now we all are talking and caring about privacy, so why not change your password to a more secure manner, such as password that is longer than 8 characters, and is a combination of figures, alphabets or even using symbols and change the style you entering a password, for example your password is 1234, then you can enter 2 first and enter the rest no in sequence, and change the style often. So that people are not easy to realise your password. There are also some internet security method which can replace password such as Physiological Biometrics such as fingerprints, iris, hand or facial characteristics,Behavioral Biometrics for examples, voice scans or keystroke monitoring, and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). PKI is a public key encryption that using for securing e-payments.

Internet security has become a hot issue nowadys, it is very important to know it well and you will be saving, vice versa.

The Process of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure )










Some Examples for Physiological Biometrics













Fingerprint and Iris

Some Examples for Behavioral Biometrics



















References:

1.http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

2.http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Internet+security&ei=sJM8SsXIO8mJkQWW2qjBDg&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

3. Lecture notes- Lecture04 E-Commerce Security (Slide 14 & 15)