What is your favourite place to buy online goods from? Do you know the safety measures these platforms have in place?
If you don’t, then it’s time you read about it before someone virtually robs you!
Safety Ratings
Ministry of Home Affairs has published this year’s E-commerce Marketplace Transaction Safety Ratings (TSR). The two e-commerce platforms, Facebook Marketplace and Carousell were again ranked lowest, having been awarded one tick and two ticks, respectively.
The ticks represent the quality of the safeguards implemented to protect consumers from fraud and scams, with four being the highest and best rating.
Assessments include considering the platform’s user credibility, transaction safety, consumer access to loss remediation channels, and the effectiveness of their anti-scam safeguards.
Other platforms, including Amazon, Lazada, and Qoo10, each received all four ticks, while Shopee only received three.
And why should this information be important to you? Not only are e-commerce scams one of the top scams in Singapore, but as a consumer, you wouldn’t want to log in to a platform and blindly have $10,000 robbed from your wallet.
Last year, 4,762 recorded e-commerce fraud instances were reported, up 74.5% from 2,729 cases the year before. About 62 per cent of these happened on Facebook and Carousell, usually involving the online sales of undelivered goods and services.
Keep An Eye Out
To counteract the increase in victims, the Ministry of Home Affairs launched a nationwide anti-scam campaign in January, educating people to be more attentive to their purchases using three key actions – add, check and tell – to avoid scams.
One telling sign is that scammers typically push customers to make payments through other methods, such as bank transfers, and are more likely to utilize unverified accounts to offer their goods and services.
Consumers should also be aware of TSR’s platform ratings and look for whether essential safety measures are available before making an online purchase.
In addition to overall ratings, the TSR offers market-specific recommendations on the security measures each e-commerce platform has implemented and general consumer advice on how consumers should protect themselves during online transactions.
Online platforms, of course, have been continuously improving their safety features.
For instance, Lazanda introduced a buyer confirmation feature in December 2022 that restricts payment to the seller for a confirmation time.
Only until the customer has acknowledged receipt and expressed satisfaction with the order, or after the confirmation period, will the money is transferred.
During the same period, on Shopee, the platform has required that sellers’ identities be verified based on government-issued documentation.
Additionally, Carousell has started its “certified” program for used luxury handbags, smartphones and automobiles.
