Review of Blooming.com

There are many local-commerce website in Malaysia and the lucky website that I had chosen is http://www.booming.com.my/. This is a website that specializes in gifts and flowers for various occasions.

This website has a large selection of flowers as gifts and it has more variety of flowers and is much customizable. The QUALITY FLOWERS and QUALITY SERVICES have been provided to customers and maintain consistently through the years. However, Noel.com becomes the main competitor to Blooming in e-commerce scene because Noel provides various type of gift compare to Blooming is more focus on flowers as gifts.

Being a gift website, Blooming does not have many choices of practical gifts that I could actually give to my friends and family members. Most of their arrays of gifts are very exotic in nature. Hence, they are not suitable to be given just to anyone. However, if a last-minute purchase needs to be made, and you don’t have any idea what to get, this website will be an excellent choice for you. You no need go out to choose for the gift but just sit at home and click to select the gift from the website. The delivery service is also provided. It is much more convenience compares to shopping.

This website not only focused on the ‘Valentine’ Day’ market, but also focused on Birthday, Wedding Day, because they are very ‘lovey-dovey’ in nature and have many flowers and cute soft toys and etc for purchase.

In conclusion, Blooming.com is an e-commerce site which provides a good quality of flowers and services to the user. The overall site design and layout of the website is also very nice and well organized.

Related links:
http://www.blooming.com.my/
http://www.noel.com.my/

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

E-auction fraud is a growing epidemic worldwide, as online shopping has grown significantly every year that online shopping has been available.

Most e-auction fraud cases involve straightforward scams where consumers allegedly win merchandise by being the highest bidder. All sounds good until they send the payment and never receive the merchandise.

Sometimes auction fraud cases involve slick descriptions that are presented and worded in a way that most people would miss important details.

Below are some tips on keeping risk at a minimum when purchasing items from an e-auction website:

• Be aware of phishing. Verify that you are receiving emails from the correct source and that you are logging in at the correct website.
• When making payment, prefer using your credit card over online transfer. Using a credit card give you the opportunity of a chargeback in case the transaction turns out a fraud. Use debit card, wire transfer, or money order only when you completely trust the seller.
• Use reputed escrow services. An escrow service mediates a buyer and a seller. They accept money from buyers and release them to a seller only when the buyer confirms that the product was received to his/her satisfaction. But be wary of sellers or buyers who themselves pose as an escrow service to cheat the other—a buyer posing as an escrow service gets a product released without making payment, or a seller poses as an escrow service to trick the buyer from making a payment.
• DO NOT entertain emails received from outside of the auction website mentioning that the highest bidder has withdrawn and you are now entitled for a product. They veer you off the auction website and you lose any protection that the website may provide.
• NEVER make a deal with a seller outside the auction. Although they sound lucrative, you are at a very high risk of being cheated.
• READ the auction website’s terms and conditions, buyer protection policy, refund policy before making a transaction. Here, they list in how many days the order will be fulfilled, what if the product you receive is not the same as what was advertised, and so on. Also check that the policies are fair on both buyers and sellers.
• Check if the product you are purchasing has appropriate warranty and documentation with it. If not, make sure that you intend to purchase it without that protection. Check if shipping and delivery is covered by the seller or if you have to bear those costs.
• Check that you are not purchasing a product that you are not allowed to possess lawfully.
• BE WARY of products that offer revolutionary results. In most cases, they are fraudulent claims.
• DO NOT respond to emails that ask for your personal information, such as your log in details or credit card details.
• READ the online auction website for feedback on the seller and a rating that they give to sellers and buyers. Most online auctions rate the sellers and buyers based on their transactions’ feedback.
• READ the product features and the model number that you intend to purchase. Verify these with what is being advertised by the seller.
• When giving your credit card details or your debit account details at a website, check that the Internet connection you are using is secure. Look for the lock at the bottom or https (an‘s’ appended to ‘http’) in the address field of your browser. These indicate that the connection is a secure one.
• Avoid making a transaction if anything in the auction seems suspicious to you.
• If you are cheated on any product purchase, be sure to post a note on the online auction website and let them know personally.

Moblie Payment System in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers' adoption strategies

For the adoption from Wikipedia website, Mobile payment (also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing) is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, SmartPhone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other such device.
The mobile payment can be used to purchase any number of digital goods and physical goods. For example digital goods are ring tones, games, wallpaper for mobile phone and the booking cinema ticket and air ticket. Usually purchase digital good are through by SMS based transaction payments or mobile web payment (WAP).

Mobile payments services indeed have a great potential and advantage. Consumers are more comfortable with low-value transactions over such non-traditional means. Common applications will include payment for transportation, parking, restaurants, convenience stores, retail outlets, e-tickets to name a few - typically for low-value items. This helps especially when consumers are in need of cash but doesn’t have any in hand, therefore with mobile payments they do not need to even search for an ATM machine to withdraw the needed money for the payment.

In order to encourage consumer to adopt mobile payment systems, it should enhance consumer confidence toward security, safety and reliability of the systems. It can also educate consumers through seminar or advertisement about the function and the usage of mobile payment system. Furthermore, it should increase the number of company that can accept mobile payment system.

electronic currency

Electronic currency also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency which refers to money or scrip that is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. The examples of electronic money are Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit. EFT refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically while direct deposit is a banking term used to refer to certain systems used to transfer money.


Electronic currency allows its holder to buy the goods and services that the greatness of the internet offers. A private currency may use gold to provide extra security, such as digital gold currency. An e-currency system may be full backed by gold (like e-gold and c-gold), non-gold backed, or both gold and non-gold backed (like e-Bullion and Liberty Reserve). Other than that, some private organizations, such as US military use private currencies such as Eagle Cash. Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to the end user, such as Paypal and WebMoney, but other systems such as e-gold, sell only through third party digital currency exchangers.


The main focuses of digital cash development are:
1. being able to use it through a wider range of hardware such as secured credit cards.
2. linked bank accounts that would generally be used over an internet means for exchange with a secure micropayment system such as in large corporations (PayPal)


The digital cash can provide many benefits such as convenience and privacy, increased efficiency of transactions, lower transaction fees, and new business opportunities with the expansion of economic activities on the internet. Other than that, there are many potential issues with the use of digital cash. The transfer of digital currencies raised local issues such as how to levy taxes or the possible ease of money laundering. There are also potential macroeconomic effects such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies (total amount of digital cash versus total amount of real cash available, basically the possibility that digital cash could exceed the real cash available). These issues may only be addressable by some type of cyberspace regulations or laws that regulate the transactions and watch for signs of trouble.


Electronic currency trading can let you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. In fact, some of the experts will suggest the beginners to start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes of electronic currency. Besides, electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that will eat up your profit with a huge amount of fees and give you more profit and money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency trading such as MG E-currency, IT GOLD.com



Related links:

1. http://www.selfseo.com/story-6264.php

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_currency

3. http://www.romow.com/business-blog/benefits-of-e-currency-trading/

Credit Cards Debt: causes and prevention

Credit cards do provide convenient for most of us in our daily life. However, great responsibility comes with having a credit card. The number of people who now have credit card debts is at an all time high; credit cards have become easier to obtain and more tempting to use concurrently, which is a lethal combination.

With the debts rising, it is not surprising that individuals have started to realize the financial problem they have created by the constant and indiscriminate spending they have carried out.

What caused credit cards debt? Poor purchasing decisions, lack of information on credit card fees, and disregard for upcoming credit payments are among the reasons why many credit-card users are often hard-pressed in paying their debts.

Furthermore, poor money management also causes credit cards debt. Most people are unable to manage their expenses well and always spend over their income. People, who are experiencing under-employment, where they were over-qualified to their current position, may fail to balance out their expenses with their current income. These people tend to be irresponsibility as they do not concern about their future, by spending their future money.

So how can we prevent these problems?

Be credit smart. Applying for a credit card application means you are ready to assume the responsibility for paying your credit.

Use your credit cards wisely and sparingly. Remember: Paying goods and services using credit cards are more expensive than using cash or checks. Credit payments include interest and other fees. Use credit cards as sparingly as possible. If you really need to use credit cards, carry only the cards that you will actually use.

Avoid impulse shopping on your credit card.

Savings. Save living expenses for the period of three to six months. This can help you when you facing an urgent need to use money.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Prepaid cash cards are plastic cards, which fall under the pay first category of plastic payments. Prepaid cash cards can be used to make payment for goods and services and even to withdraw money. Before use, the user needs to load the card with a sum of money. This means there is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility. Prepaid cash cards are designed to be used as a safer alternative as compare to cash.

The prepaid cash card is of use in several ways. For example, we can use it for paying bill, such as rent, utilities, insurance, car payment, and cell phone bills. Besides, we can shop at anywhere as long as the card using is accepted at different retailers, buys fuel at the pump, pay by phone, and shop on the Internet. We also can use it for transferring money - for some prepaid cash card they provide the convenient such as send or receive money via bank wire transfers, between two cards.

The following are some examples of the prepaid cash card:

Touch ‘n Go (TnG) smart card is used by Malaysian for electronic payment system to toll expressway and highway. It is expanding its business to retail purchase by starting with fast food industry that enables consumers to buy dough nut, burger or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut. It is imitating the success of Hong Kong’s Octopus Card by setting 5 to 10% of the card holders for retail purchase as current target of the company.

Octopus Card was launched in Hong Kong on year 1997, September. It is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card to transfer electronic payments in online in offline system. It is widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarkets, fast food restaurant, car parks and other pint of sale application such as service station s and vending machines that have achieved good outcomes.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

The threat of online security can be distinguish between nontechnical and technical.

Nontechnical attacks are those in which a perpetrator uses some form of deception or persuasion to trick people into revealing information or performing actions that can compromise the security of a network. Examples are pretexting and social engineering.

Technical attack is an attack perpetrated using software and system knowledge or expertise. An example of technical attack is a computer worm.

Types of attacks
Zero-day incidents are attacks through previously unknown weaknesses in their computer network.

Denial of service is an attack in which so many requests for service or access bombard a system that it crashes or cannot respond. Zombied PCs can be used to launch DOS attacks or spread adware.

Phishing is a crimeware technique to steal the identity of a target company to get the identities of customers.

Web servers and web pages can be hijacked and configured to control or redirect unsuspecting users to scam or phishing sites.

A botnet is a huge number of hijacked Internet computers that have been set up to forward spam and viruses to other computers on the Internet.

A virus is a piece of software code that inserts itself into a host, including the operating systems, running its host program activates the virus.

A worm is a software program that runs independently, consuming the resources of its host in order to maintain itself, that is capable of propagating a complete working version of itself into another machine.

A macro virus is a virus or worm that executes when the application object that contains the macro is opened or a particular procedure is executed.

Trojan horse is a program that appears to have a useful function but that contains a hidden function that presents a security risk.

Trojan-Phisher-Rebery is a new variant of a Trojan program that stole tens of thousands of stolen identities from 125 countries that the victims believed were collected by legitimate company.

Banking Trojan is a Trojan that comes to life when computer owners visit one of a number of online banking or e-commerce sites.
Rootkit is a special Trojan Horse program that modifies existing operating system software so that an intruder can hide the presence of Trojan program.