Ch 14 Blog

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/06/business/NA-US-Retailer-Fraud-Indictment.php

Summary
This article is about how 11 hackers hacked into business accounts and stole more than 41 million credit and debit card numbers in USA. This is one of the largest case in stealing Credit and debit card numbers during the years. The suspects were charged; they are from Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus and China. Specifically, they had wireless computer networks of retailers including TJX Cos., BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW and made programs that captured card numbers, passwords and account information. In addition, they caused major losses by banks, retailers, and costumers. According to a survery the US did, it stated that more than half of small retails kept sensitive pieces of information and 57 per cent don't believe that making customer data secure is something that essential. On the other hand, 61 per cent of small businesses have never tried to get information about how they can properly handle and store customer information. However, there is a way to lower the chance of being hacked if businesses removed prohibited data and properly secured the data that was left (after 5-10 years).

Relation to the Chapter
In the chapter, it talked about personal banking, how one should always keep a detailed record of his or her transactions so that he or she will know the exact bank balance anytime. Moreover, he or she can esaily check back on t any particular payment or analyze payments for income tax and other purposes. This is one of the solutions to which how customers can find out right away if there is a fraud in credit or debit card transactions, or see if any weird payments are going on knowing that he or she never made such a transaction. I think this would also make customers realize frauds earlier and decrease the amount of loss.

Reflection

Recently, I heard that frauds of credit and debit card transactions are increasing over the years. Business often think that they are protected by security locks and costumers always think they are safe, but people are able to set up hacking systems. Thus, i think one way to prevent having our money being cheated, we shoudl always be keeping an eye on our bank statements, and keep our receipts together all the time. I remember my aunt recieved her bank statements one month, and she found some weird transactions going on on her account. Luckily she quickly gathered up all her reciepts that she kept in a folder and went to talk to the person in charge. She later found out that one of the employees in a particular store stole her number and started using her money. Thus, this is why we shoudl always keep a record of what we are spending on to prevent unwanted money loss.

Chapter 12 Blog

http://www.courant.com/news/local/columnists/hc-ubinas1005.artoct05,0,423379.column

Summary
This article is about the legislature passed a bill in June allowing gas stations to offer these cash discounts in US ( to pay with cash right after when purchasing gasoline). The legislators may like to think they are trying to help consumers that are going broke with the rapidly growing gas prices, but many people didn't really understand why they did that. The gas prices are so expensive that some people would just fill in just enough gas so that they can go to another gas station with a lower price. One of the consumers went into a gas station and paid for gas with her credit card, however she ended up paying 10 cents more because she didnt pay cash. Many people felt that this cash discount seems to only favour those that carry a lot of cash around with them. People didn't think they were getting a deal. Michael J. Fox, the head of gasoline retailers, defends this cash discount plan. He defends the gas station owns by saying they are the one that has to face the outrageous fees by the big oil and credit card companies, thus they have to increase the credit price. In addition, people thinks that there should be a better way to help ease the burden on drivers rather than using this cash discount plan.

Relation to the Chapter
This chapter mentioned about cash discounts, and in the article it states that people thought it was unfair. since nowadays, many people use credit cards instead of cash, it is hard for them to pay in cash all the time and thus not able to pay it right away. Cash discount is when the seller allows a certain percentage reduction in the gross price given by a seller to a buyer who pays within a set period of time. As a matter of fact, there are many drawbacks to this system. One of the drawbacks is that seller tends to increase prices as much as it is then so that he or she can figure out whether or not the selling price high enough to cover the loss arising from this deduction.

Reflection

It is evident that the gas prices are rising all around the world. Governments are trying to come up with plans so that they can help ease the burden on drivers. However, I think that the plan they have in the states isnt that good because why would people be carrying that much cash around all the time? Most people would be paying gas via credit card or debit card because that is what most convenient to them. In my opinion, they should create some other programs like our SuperPass cards, when we purchase a 400 L per month, we get a 2.2cent discount per liter. Isn't that a better idea?

Chapter 11 Blog

http://www.suntimes.com/business/930743,CST-NWS-saving04.article

Summary: This article is about how food, gas costs force lifestyle changes for many people. In the article, Mark Davis, a 44 year-old policeman used to head out for restaurants two or three times a week. Now, he only goes there once a weeks. Why this change? It is due to the fact that he has 4 children, and one of them is only few months old. Moreover, the prices of foods and gas is going up a lot. Moreover, the price of gasolin has raised to $4 dollars a gallon in Chicago. This forced Davis to be a lot careful with regards to where he is driving. On the other hand, his family's vacation plans have also changed. Why? In the past, he would go on a vacation without his children around, but this year he planned to go for 1 family vacation trip instead. This time they will be going to somewhere near their hometown, and not fly to other countries like before.



Connection: This article talks about how the rising prices of foods and gasoline have made such a big impact on people's lifestyle. We have talked about something new in our chapter -freight in costs, which is when seller pays a fee for transportation of goods. ( By raising the price of gas, businesses will experience a higher freight in cost when recieving delivery like foods. Thus causing food prices increasing so that businesses will be able to maintain their profit and maintain the amount of inventory. This leads to the fact of losing costumers and so there will be a decrease in their profits and net income (increase in expense and decrease in revenue).

Reflection: I do see the price of gasoline and foods also rising a lot. Especially with the gasoline, when i got off work at night. i would see cars in a crazy line up heading for gasoline when its 116.9cents per liter. I remember about ten years ago, 60 cents was considered to be expensive. As we can see, gasoline's price is skyrocketing. In this case, businesses have chosen to lay the burden on customers instead. On the other hand, I do think this has a great impact on our lives because we will be prefering to use public transport instead, due to the fact that it costs quite a lot for driving a car. Moreover, I used to go out for lunch every friday with my friends, however, after the price of the foods in restaurant has risen, we stopped going. So then, i think these two factors affect many business especially food industry. They probably have lost many customers due to this rise in price.