Kaisilver, Security Blog

The rapid development of ecommerce has resulted in the development of various payment options for buyers. Western Union Money Transfers have been around for a long time, long before the Internet and ecommerce became household terms. The early uses of Western Union transactions were friends and family members, the important thing was that the receiver and the sender knew each other. The sender would visit a Western Union agent, pay cash or use a credit card and make the transfer to the receiver. The sender would communicate the money transfer transaction number (received from the Western Union agent) to the intended receiver of the payment. The receiver could visit a local Western Union agent in his locality and country, prove his identity and fill details that would include the money transfer transactrion number. The Western Union agent would check these identification details and pay out the money to the intended receiver. The important thing about such transactions was that the payer and the receiver knew each other. The responsibility of Western Union ended once the identity of the receiver was checked and the money was paid out.

As time went by, Western Union developed simpler processes to do money transfers. Western Union in some countries now allows the sender to phone in, provide credit card details and confirm a money transfer. You can also access the Western Union website and check for countries from where money can be transferred online. The sender in such cases would not need to present himself at a Western Union agent. The receiver would ofcourse need to follow the same procedure of identifying himself at a local Western Union agent and collect the funds.We now come to the possible dangers of using Western Union Money Transfers to pay for online transactions. In this case, the possibility of the buyer not having any previous buying experience with the seller is high. This is a situation that is different from the traditional money transfers earlier done through Western Union. Traditionally, the sender and receiver were known to each other, frauds between these two parties were unlikely. The role and responsibility of Western Union earlier and even now, ends when the money is paid out to the identified receiver. The receiver (seller) is then expected to fulfill his part of the transaction by shipping the merchandise or providing the agreed service to the sender (buyer). The scope for a fraud exists here, a fraudulent seller could back out of his part of the transaction after receiving the payment. The buyer could do little as Western Union would close the transaction the moment the pay out was made to the seller (receiver) of the payment. Western Union itself does it’s bit by advising senders not to transfer money to unknown people. This is a sad situation as Western Union Money Transfers are the only payment mode available in certain countries and regions. Besides this, not many sellers would indulge in such frauds. At the same time, the fears and worries of the sender (buyer) need to be addressed too. Most reputed online sellers including Kaisilver, offer Western Union Money Transfers as a mode of payment but, do not recommend it for first time buyers. It would give a buyer more peace of mind if he knew the reputation of the seller, repeat transactions could therefore be paid through Western Union Money Transfers.As a buyer, you should discuss other payment modes like Paypal or direct bank transfers with your seller. If you decide to use Western Union Money Transfers for online payments, check the website of the seller and make sure that it looks trustworthy. Then visit popular search engines like Yahoo and Google and search for the seller’s website name. Check for negative feedback or comments in blogs or forums. Some negative comments could be baseless, read and understand the content and context before making a decision.

Few sellers are willing to clearly explain the issues involved in online payments to buyers. They fear that buyers would be put off and prefer not to go ahead with the transaction. However, at Kaisilver we believe that a well informed buyer can be protected against threats and frauds. This security blog is maintained by us to educate buyers and not to push our jewelry sales. If you have found this information to be interesting or useful, please pass the link of this blog to your friends and collegues, a safer Internet will be great for all of us. You can find more information related to online security and threats at this link: http://www.newsletter.kaijewels.com/safe-online-payment.htm

There is a very disturbing trend that has developed in online commerce or, ecommerce as it is popularly known. There was a time when buyers were afraid of sellers committing frauds and not shipping merchandise that they (buyers) had paid for. Similarly sellers were cheated by buyers using fake credit card information, merchandise would be shipped to the buyer and the seller would then be informed by the bank that the card was infact a robbed one and did not belong to the buyer. The seller would be forced to refund the payment received to the bank issuing the credit card, the buyer ofcourse got away with the merchandise paying nothing for it.

That was the normal scenario, before a third party came into the picture and was capable of cheating the buyer or the seller. These fraudsters used various email communications trying to get confidential login information for online payment modes like Paypal. Armed with this information, they would then hack the victims paypal account and use the funds for their own benefit.

The emails would be made to appear like genuine paypal emails and contain links to click and login. The contents of the email could differ but the purpose is always the same, to compromise security of a paypal account. Here are some types of email contents that are very popular with these fraudsters.

(a) Account suspended or unauthorised activity. In this email, the victim is urged to login to his paypal account and update his profile information. The email goes on to say that some unauthorised activity was noticed in the paypal account and requires this update. The victim is informed that failing to do the update would result in account suspension. The links on these emails do not lead to the genuine Paypal website. They instead, divert the victim to a look-alike webpage hosted by the fraudster on another web host.

(b) Payment has been made: Another more worrying email content is when the fraudulent email claims that, a payment has been made to an XYZ party from the victim’s Paypal account. The victim is naturally very worried as he would have no idea regarding the payment. Should the

(c) Email added to Paypal account: The victim in this case receives an email that an additional email address was successfully added to his Paypal account. Once again, the fraudster hopes that the victim would click the link on the email to quickly check and rectify the situation.

You can read a more complete report on Paypal security problems and also learn how to keep your Paypal account safe at this link: http://www.newsletter.kaijewels.com/paypal-frauds-paypal-email-scams.htm

The report is compiled in the public interest by http://www.kaijewels.com The leading online custom jewelry provider from Thailand. Please pass the information to your friends and relatives. We can together build a safer and stronger ecommerce transaction platform for all of us.

Bank Account Frauds, Beware Of Identity Theft

Bank frauds are today being perpetuated by the popular method of phishihg. Simply put, phishing is the process where the fraudster tries to extract confidential information through convincing (fraudulent) emails. When such a fraudster tries to defraud your bank account, he does not really know whether you have a bank account with the concerned bank. Emails are sent to a very large number of innocent victims, the fraudster hopes that some of these will reach actual holders of bank accounts with the particular bank.

The email basically informs you that there is some update to be done to your bank account information. This is the beginning of an attempt to perform a bank fraud. It is quite likely that you do not even have an account with that particular bank, in which case you simply ignore the email. However, if you had an account with that bank, your impulsive action would be to act as per the email. The email would inform you that your bank account would be suspended if the suggested action was not taken. A link on the email urges you to login and make the necessary update to your bank account.

Once you click the link, you are taken to your bank account login page which looks very similar to the bank account page that you normally use to log in. This is the dangerous part of the email, the page is infact not an authentic login page for your bank account. It is clone page that is hosted by the fraudster on some other website and some other server. When you enter your login name and password to access your bank account, the clone web page transmits this information to the fraudster.

The fraudster is immediately informed through a triggered email that, a victim has fallen prey. He would then enter the actual bank account website and login with your details. The funds in your account will then be syphoned out of your bank account. Depending on the amount that is available, the damage to your financial position can be paralysing.

Advice: If you every receive such an email from any source, do not click on any link on the email. Remember this, no matter how authentic the email appears to be. If you must access your bank account, open a fresh browser page, type the entire name of the website for your bank and then do the login. If there was something genuinely wrong with your bank account, any reputed bank would place that issue right on the first page after you login successfully. If this is not present, call your bank and discuss the problem. Do not refer to any phone numbers mentioned on the suspected email.

If you by any chance fall for this prey, contact your bank as soon as possible and inform them of the problem. Access your bank website by typing in the full name of the bank website and change the password to your account.

This information is provided in the public interest by http://www.kaisilver.com the world’s largest online provider of high end custom jewelry. Please pass the information to your friends and relatives, it is our duty to ensure that fraudsters do not make Internet commerce unsafe for any one.