Econsumers Protection

While the econsumer may get a great "deal" on the Internet, she is exposed to a number of possible dangers of which she may not be aware of until something goes wrong. The problems are in the areas of consumer protection, guarantees, return policies and redress for defective or unsuitable merchandise or service.

Let us first address the problem of charges for merchandise or services brought on line. Most econsumer use credit cards for payments. While ecash (DigiCash etc.) were offered in the early days of the Web (that was five years ago!), they have not found favour.

The credit card issuers are not responsible for any problem encountered with a purchase. If the consumer has a problem or dispute with a merchant regarding a purchase, the consumer has to pay all card charges and settle all problems or disputes directly with the merchant. This is pretty difficult for a lone consumer across jurisdictional and national boundaries with no help from the card issuer in this regard. If the credit card company has any dispute settlement rules, they are not very public and cannot be discovered by consumers. Many times their actions are ad hoc; any flexibility shown is to avoid negative publicity rather than being genuinely interested in being a mediator.

Other possible standards established in traditional commerce may not apply to ecommerce which spans national and continental boundaries. They include the lack of:

• Minimum common standards for fair business,
• Minimum common standards for truth in advertising and honesty in marketing practices
• Minimum requirement for disclosure of all relevant information
• Clear and easily understood user interface which explains fully the terms of the ecommerce transaction and which must comply with the local consumer protection laws. The jurisdiction should be the more stringent of the ones at the location of the econsumer or of the ecommerce.
• Clear procedure for redress in case of disputes and location of judicial forum for its resolution; this must not be prohibitively costly to be useful from a practical point of view.
• Since credit cards are the de-facto form of payment, the rules governing payment in case of disputes should be accessible to the econsumer. The credit card companies have a moral obligation to be open and helpful; a minimum level of help must be provided.

Since the selection of the forum for settling disputes is chosen by the ecommerce organization in the terms offered in fine print, most econsumers are at a disadvantage specially in cross-border disputes. Most econsumers usually would lack the means and resources to pursue cross-border unethical business. The consumers are thus exposed to loss and fraud; this problem while not much different from direct marketing, now encompasses the entire world rather than selected regions targeted by a direct marketing organization which usually operates within national boundaries.