Tips for prevention

What is ODR？

• To resolve disputes and conflicts occured in cyberspace by the methods such as online negotiaion, mediation, or arbitration.Abbreviation of Online Dispute Resolution.

•　To resolve disputes and conflicts occured in the real world using online communication methods such as e-mails, chat, or TV conferences。

•　To prevent these disputes and conflicts online.

• The main advantages of ODR are: to reduce cost and time for resolution; to correspond to complex cross border disputes.

Tips before E-commerce Deals

First thing to know Transactions through networking or auction websites。


Find out whether the sites you are dealing with have dispute resolution mechanism or not. If you are dealing directly with the other party, find out their specifications on shipping and payments which often cause disputes.
１. Are your items legal to deal with?。


This is very important when you have international business. It is, for example, illegal to export musical instruments or leather products to Italy. Please refer to USPS for further detail。Click on the ”Index of Countries Localities" of the left hand side list and choose a country which you want to know about. There are various regulations for animals and plants.

２.　Buyers pay for customs duty, sales taxes, and handling fees。


It is better to search for the amount of customs duty or sales taxes prior for payments. Please refer Japanese Customs site.


３．Open a bank account/register at a net shopping/auction sites of a country in which you live in.。


If you can not validate your residence, you can not open bank accounts. The global companies like eBay have various subsidiaries, but you need to register at the site of the country you live in. Paypal, for example, has a site in Japanese, but there is no Paypal Japan yet. It is a translation of the ROW (Rest of the World) site. The office is in Singapore and the rules are regualted by the law of Singapore. The Japanese with this ROW account can not transmit money from Japanese bank and have to use credit cards to pay for the ROW account, but they can withdraw money and transmit to their Japanese bank accounts. Those Japanese who have US Paypal account can not transmit to Japanese bank account.


４. Preventive measure for account hyjacks


Please change passwords frequently to access your accounts. Check your personal information often. When your address has been changed to other than where you live in, your account was hyjacked.


５．Preventive measure for payment frauds。


Use Paypal, credit cards, and other escrow services (Research well). Limit yourself to netshop in the sites like EC Network which is members only e-commerce site and has a very good customer support services. eBay, for example, encourages to deal with people with ID　Verify and it discourages to deal with Western Union money orders which can be cashed out in virtually anywhere.


６．Do not deal with offers outside of auctions。


There are people who are offered another deals via emails when they could not bid. Do not respond to these emails. Deal with registered seller and buyers.
　

７．Never respond to the emails and websites which ask your passport numbers, bank account numbers. or passwords


Please do not disclose passwords and other personal informations. Especially the passwords to your bank accounts and numbers on the back of your credit cards. eBay made it clear that it would never ask such questions via emails. There are fake URLs to trap you to put some information. Check the address of sites. They are quite similar to legitimate sites. eBay's legitimate site, for example, is "http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi...", but a fake URL can be "http://cghi.ebay.com/saw-cgi". Check the source of a site page and see if links are connected to legitimate sites. Fake URLs are linked to suspicious address to which your information would be sent to. Also check the header of email messages. The name of the sender and the usernames could be different. The emails can be sent from free email accounts and not from legitimate companies. In Outlook, select a mail and right click. Select Option and check the header. The path it took to reach you may show suspicious route.


８.　Check shipping costs before sending items and products.。


The most problematic issue in international e-commerce is shipping and handling charges. C2C auction can be a problem when the price of a produt is much less than the shipping cost. Study the rates because there is always the possibility of returning and exchanging items. State your shipping and refunding policy in your websites or have agreements on who would be responsible in cases of returning or exchanging.


9.　Do not throw away receipts, confirmation notices, certifications, or any other related papers.。


We are not yet in the paperless age. These papers could be very critical at a time of conflict. When you receive confirmations in emails, do not forget to print them out.


10.　Start writing a diary。


A brief memorandum of what you did on a day would give you an advantage when a trouble happens. People forget 5W1H easily. The organized memory can bring you an edge in small claims cases, too.

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