posted on June 17, 2002 04:22:58 PM
One of my friends asked me to post such a topic on related message boards.
The ideea is to open an online business that will offer their customers consulting and assistance in every auction they bid, to inspect the seller/buyer online and give a verdict about it. Also, there will be assistance in managing a e-commerce site, scanning them for known and not known bugs in scripts that 90% of the merchants are using, and if needed securing their site.
This is the ideea in large .. all I need is some advice, if this will work in your opinion and if you, or your friends would apply for such assistance. Thanks
posted on June 17, 2002 09:21:40 PM
while I'm waiting to bid, how long is it going to take you to verify my seller and give an opinion as to...what?...whether the seller is honest? whether the item is a good buy? what will a website be able to do re; verifying a seller, checking his feedback etc, that a savvy user cannot do himself? ...and how far will your coverage go if the "consultant's" advice is dead wrong, which it will be some of the time..there are plenty of things the average user can do to protect themselves from malicious scripts and bugs already, most of which dont involve a monthly fee..sounds like a vaguely good idea, maybe, which will ultimately not make any money because it won't be able to charge enough to cover costs and will have to rely on banner ads and data mining and resale of it's customer's information .My sense is that the good old dotcom boom days where you repackage a bunch of otherwise free stuff and charge for it are long gone...good bidders are probably too smart to need a service like this...on the other hand, never overestimate the intelligence of the average internet user. AOL has built an empire on the backs of people who are afraid to figure out the internet for themselves, Microsoft continues to treat it's customers like chattel........so who knows? not me though, I'll pass....
posted on June 18, 2002 07:20:13 AM
If you find anyone who is willing to pay for this service let me know. I have some swampland to sell. I don't mean to be rude but if anyone does pay for this P.T. Barnum was right!!
posted on June 18, 2002 07:35:55 AM
Ok, ok .. let's suppose you are right, that any avarage user can verify the auction and he can tell if it is right or wrong to bid on that auction .. than how can you explain that every day new users are burned by scammers? .. I think an experimented user can tell if an auction is real of fake, but the *average* user can not. See statics on auction fraud.
Secondly .. you also state in your reply that ANY merchant can verify those scripts and stuff. Let me prove you that I can find you over 100 sites that can be defeated and data like credit card information can be stolen. I can find those siten only by searching on google for some cgi's. Do you think that ANY merchant has time or knownledge to search on bugtraq or that he is a security expert? .. let me tell you something .. I found in less than 30 minutes 4 web hosting services that were sensitive on some bugs in cgi's. Over 5000 sites were exposed to hacks. I notified the administrators on that, but yet did not recieve any reply from them. And they are EXPERTS. It might be a wrong ideea for a business, but be sure that not ANY user is aware of all this things. Best Regards.
posted on June 18, 2002 08:09:27 AM
you seem to be on two tracks here,correct me if I'm wrong.
1. auction fraud-- everybody knows the STATISTICS on it. Lots of us have been toasted by crooked sellers or buyers...but as I said before, what are you going to be able to do to check out a seller/buyer that the average ebay user cannot do himself? are you going to charge people money to go check somebody's feedback for them? what a ridiculous idea. If you as a website are not a principal in an auction, Ebay will not let you access a buyer's or seller's personal information. Unless you're going to run a full blown Private Eye type service after the fact, or use your considerable skills to hack Ebay, I just don't see the potential in this idea.
2. Ecommerce security/ID theft...if you're so good at this, why in the world would you want to take the risk of venturing out on your own by starting a website? There are, you know, a few minor, two bit players in this field who would probably pay through the nose for your level of expertise. Names like Norton, McAffee, Microsloth, RSA and VeriSign come to mind, I'd give them a call if I were you....
posted on June 18, 2002 08:48:12 AM
Then there is a legal issue, even though you place in a TOS that you may not be liable, it still will not protect you from a law suit going to court. TOS's do not protect you for Slander and Liable. I see a possibility of a business, but the risks for you are more the possible out come. The only way that you would be able to prove that a seller is a fraud, is you would have to buy something and see what happens.
As for checking web sites, you could do that, but there is no requirement that the web site fix the problems that you has stated they had, and what would you do, please them on a public list. If you did that, then we are back to the legal issue again
