(00:00:24) Attention shoppers, welcome to midday and Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten and today during this first hour of. Midday. We're going to take a look at the Brave New World of shopping on the internet now, perhaps you're already an e-commerce veteran. Maybe you've been thinking about buying something online. Maybe the whole concept just scares the Daylights out of you. Well, there's a new study out today designed to help consumers navigate the world of the internet Marketplace the consumer Federation of America along with the center for the study of services is releasing a report today on some of the pitfalls awaiting internet consumers and joining us from Washington to discuss that study as Jack Gillis the director of public affairs for the consumer Federation of America, probably recognize. Mr. Gillis, of course, he's the author of the car book and he's been on midday several times over the years talking about cars and trucks today's joining us to talk about internet shopping and we invite you to join our conversation if you've got a question About safety prices Service anything to do with internet shopping give us a call here at 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free and that number is 1-800-222-8477 thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight elements to kill us. (00:01:48) Hi Gary. How are you? Well, I'm just fine good to talk with you again. We're going to be talking about the wild west today. (00:01:54) Is it is it that tough? I mean internet shopping appears to be growing by Leaps and Bounds. I saw one estimate that just what three four years from now half of all the households in America will be buying something online hundred billion dollar business is are all these people getting ripped off. (00:02:15) Well, no, they're not and in fact the bottom line Gary is that the internet has the potential to be the most Powerful shopping tool that consumers have at their disposal. The beauty of it is we can have access to all kinds of different prices something a few years ago to get the various prices on products. You'd have to sit on the phone and maybe make lots of long distance phone calls or go to a mall and traipse around or drive to various different stores. Now, you have all that information at your disposal and you can actually go ahead and order the products most of the products that you'll see. So the beauty for consumers is that because of our access to all kinds of different price information sources, we now are enabling consumers to pit one retailer against the other they're all competing to give us the lowest price in the best products. So that's the good news and it's very exciting. The bad news is our study uncovered some pretty scary things that are Not out there and I'll just give you a quick list of them. The first thing we found was that these search engines that you often use to find different products will often lead you to paid advertisers rather than the best prices. The second thing we found was a lot of abuse of shipping and handling charges. You'll get a list of the top 10 or the least expensive Tim camcorders say for example, and you don't know the shipping charges. Well in many cases those shipping charges will be 10 to 15 percent of the cost of the item. And if you don't factor that in you'll end up paying more for that item than you should another absolutely huge surprise to us. Was that depending on how you entered a site whether you use that little search bar and type in a keyword or you use the shopping link that appears on many of the web portals depending on how you Should that site indicates often what kind of prices you'll get we found one company called Giant shopping.com in which we entered two ways and the price of a typical DVD machine was a hundred dollars difference. We also find that many of these searches cause you to unwittingly disclose personal information and that's that's not news on the internet, but we found that for example to join one of the bigger membership shopping clubs. They the come on price was $1 for 90 days. And then after that you didn't know what the price was going to be to get to the price you had to disclose your name your address your email information and your telephone and if you then you got the price which was 69 dollars a year if you chose to say to yourself. Well, that's an awful lot of money. I don't think I want that they already had captured your Mation and you couldn't retract it. So there's a lot happening out. There it is, you know overwhelmingly good news, but we are concerned that as technologically sophisticated and as fabulous the potential of the of this internet there is also the fabulous potential to become (00:05:41) abused. Did you find Jack that there were any standards that apply to most of the online retailers or is it truly a wild west situation where it's every man for (00:05:55) himself? It truly is a wild west situation and you really hit on one of the things that as a result of this study that we would like to look at Gary and that is set set up some specific standards such things is when you disclose the price of your product you also disclose the shipping charges associated with it such as if that you don't have to give a lot of personal information order to find the full cost of a particular service. Jazz if there are paid people that show up on the top of your search engine, you're notified that this is a paid Advertiser and not just something that the the Yahoo or Alta Vista or excite search engine came up with as a result of this unbiased search and we'd like to see that and maybe even then enable that search engine or that website to have some kind of a certification in the meantime. One of you be talking a little later with with our Co compatriot on this study Robert Ellis from the center of the study of services and they have tried to combat this by offering consumers and advertising free website in which consumers can go called Bargains dot-org. But but even that side you not going to guarantee that you get the best prices you really have to do a lot of shopping around (00:07:22) so it's It's a lot more complicated than it may appear at first blush. I think the Assumption was that if you could ever Master the computer technology or home free, but it's not that easy. (00:07:35) That's right. And as quickly as you begin to master and become comfortable in this environment, the environment will change. You know what it's like I'm very comfortable shopping around in a grocery store or a department store or even a car showroom you get on the internet and you're really in a totally different environment and it's an environment that we're not used to it doesn't mean we can't master it and it does not mean it's not going to be a very powerful Ally for us but it's different and you just you know, what our advice is keep your eyes wide open (00:08:08) Jack Ellis is with us. He's with the consumer Federation of America and there's a new study out today is organization along with the another organization the (00:08:21) Center for the study of (00:08:22) service center for the study of service is thank you for bailing me out there. No problem here all with a new study today talking about internet shopping and some of the things that you as a consumer should be aware of if you'd like to join our conversation. Give us a call here six five. One two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight how much Jack how much personal information is legitimate information when you go to one of these sites and they ask you for four things about yourself how much of that is legitimate and how much of it is purely included so that they can tap you for further sales (00:09:05) virtually. None of it is legitimate in some cases sites will have an access system so that you have your own password to get in and there may be very Various reasons why site would require that but even in those cases there to obtain a password. There's no legitimate reason for that organization to know much about you at all. The exception however is when you go to purchase something you obviously then have to give your name and address because you want that ship to you and you have to give some sort of credit card information. The good news on that front is that many sites will guarantee that if you ever have a problem associated with credit card fraud that they will pay for any charges associated with that fraud credit card companies themselves also protect you for against fraudulent use of your card over fifty dollars. So quite frankly giving your credit card over the internet is not necessarily any different than giving it over the phone or maybe Yelling at you just have to know who the recipient is. And if it's a legitimate well-known retailer, there should be no problem. But in those cases you will have to disclose a lot of personal information and you get back to the standards that we talked about. One of the things that we would like to see happen is if you have to disclose that information there has to be some proactive means by which they have to ask you if they can use this information for other purposes rather than have you require you to check it off and remember to check it off if you don't want them to (00:10:56) use it. How does the the inner world of Internet shopping compared with catalog shopping? Is it are the same pitfalls different pitfalls? Is it more dangerous for the consumer less dangerous? How does that (00:11:12) compare? It is very similar Gary except the that the danger is For a company to print and distribute a massive number of catalogs is very very expensive for a company to set up a website and be present and seem like they are more than they are is not that expensive the marketplace entry barriers in terms of money are much less when it comes to setting up a store so to speak on the internet. So so there is a greater likelihood that that maybe there's nothing really behind that site that would make you comfortable enough to Fork over your money on the other hand. And and this is why it's so difficult for consumers. There are many small time little legitimate sites that offer very good Bargains because they didn't have to spend a lot of money building a bricks and mortar store or because they didn't have to spend a lot of money getting on to the internet and they can offer very good bargains. And that's our concern. There's no real easy way to tell the difference right now. (00:12:22) Jack Ellis is with us. He is with the consumer Federation of America. He's talking internet shopping this hour a new study is out. And if you'd like to join our conversation again, 6512276 thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight Alex. Go ahead Place. (00:12:40) Hello. Thanks for taking my call. My question is does it study indicate anything for those big powerhouses like Barnes & Noble amazon.com and you know, the implications of buying from them, especially Barnes & Noble having online as well as physical stores. What are the differences there? Thank you very much. Well there really aren't a lot of differences except that instead of paying for gas and parking to get to the physical or what we call bricks and mortar store. You're going to have to pay in some cases a delivery charge to get your product. The other side of the coin however is you will have immediate access to a far broader range of products over the internet sites for these traditional retailers than you ever could by walking into one of the stores, but then let's go back the other hand. If you're a book lover. There's something about getting your hands on the the spine of a book and flipping through it before you make the purchase which you don't get obviously on the internet, but I think all in all the good there's more good news than bad news because when you have a company like Barnes & Noble competing with amazon.com and you have these two retailing Giants competing against each other the benefit is going to be greater choices and lower prices. (00:14:04) Yeah, in terms of the shipping charges, which you mentioned a couple times are they generally have you found those generally to be legitimate shipping charges or is this a way for the Online retailer to make some extra (00:14:19) money for the most part. It's the latter Gary. It's a way for the online retail or not only to make some extra money, but maybe put an artificially lower price that shows up in the search engine. We found one case where DVD player for shipping from Washington from New York City to Washington DC the shipping and handling charges were $25. Now that was the DVD player that showed up as the least expensive on our search. So your thought is well, that sounds great. Let me buy that one. Well by adding the $25 to the DVD cost it became in the middle of the batch and it was certainly not the best deal. In addition. We checked out the real cost of shipping was five dollars and eight cents and the company was charging $25. So there was a $20 pad there for so-called handling. That's the handling part of the shipping and handling and and clearly many. Retailers on the internet are using this as a way to gain greater profits. And again, it's buyer beware and you've got to shop around and compare not only the price but the shipping (00:15:29) charges I was going to say, is there any way to know whether or not what you're being charged is legit (00:15:34) the only way to know again you have to do research but the best way to figure it out is to do the same due diligence when you're shopping for the best price then go to the site and shop for the best shipping and you'll start to get a sense of what the various retailers are charging for shipping and you'll see broad ranges. If you want to be really compulsive about it, you know, your contact UPS and you ask them how much our FedEx and how much it would cost to ship a 5-pound item, but one of the things that this non-profit consumer group Bargains dot-org does to help consumers is when they do the advertising free search they not only The results of the best price but they also list the shipping charges right next to that price. So then you can easily compare (00:16:25) Jennifer your question for Jack Atlas. (00:16:28) Hi there. Yeah. I'm wondering about member orientated internet sites such as like quick start and the safety issues involved in that as far as it is it more safer is more safe. If you're dealing with a membership ID in order to get into the site and Shop not necessarily because the safety is a function of what they that site does with your information. And when I talk about safety, I really am talking about the safety of your own personal information many many of those membership type sites actually asked a lot more personal information about you and that information can be used to resell your data to other organizations. Nations or to Target you now I have to say that there is a two-edged sword to this whole thing. Anyone who has a mailbox knows that when you come home from work, your mailbox is full of junk mail, maybe 80 or 90% of it doesn't even apply to you. It's about products. You don't even interested in the benefits of knowing some information about you and your buying habits means that you will more be more likely to get information about products that you actually would be considering buying on the other hand. A lot of people feel very uncomfortable about the fact that someone knows that this is my dying pattern and let's go back to amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. They know all the books you're buying and quite often when you see you go to purchase a book. They will put a little advertising note on there other people who have purchased this book have also bought these three books and when you think about that, wow, they know what kind of books I'm reading. That's kind of that's kind of scary. But it's not any more or less safe unless the people who are acquiring the information from you have guaranteed you they were only going to do certain things with that information and you trust that guarantee (00:18:33) for those who aren't all that computer literate the whole concept of buying something on the Internet is a little scary. For example, in terms of people knowing what you're reading obviously clerk at a bookstore would know what you come in and buy but he or she is probably about the only one who would know that isn't it entirely possible and relatively easy for computer hackers to get all this information. (00:19:01) It is it is relatively easy and entirely possible. You're absolutely right and I think that the marketers the people that have vast information resources again, everything is a good news/bad news story that Nose is that's very valuable information to them. So they don't want people to come in and steal it and use it without paying for it. So there they have sort of a financial incentive to build a shell around it that will resist the most, you know that the hackers as much as possible, but it's still going to happen and you know, one of the things that we're thinking about in the consumer movement is, you know, maybe we need to give up this concept of privacy. Maybe we've already lost that venue and that the information about our self needs to have some constitutional protection Ralph Nader just the other day indicated that it should be our own intellectual property. The things that are that we know and that are personal to ourselves such as our phone numbers and our bank account numbers. Maybe that should be our intellectual property and and and we have certain rights with that information. You as the vendor can't use that without our permission right now. It's the other way around your backk. Number really is your bank accounts your bank number. It's not yours and they can do with it what they (00:20:28) want. I know you have to run Jack but time for one more caller. (00:20:32) Sure. Okay, quick question Al well more of a comment than a question. I guess they've been shopping online for a while and in concern myself about the Privacy issue. I've come up with a pretty good solution when they ask for personal information lie is pretty easy. I mean you put in a fake name fake address some of them to do shipping charges you need to put in a city state type of thing, but that's all right and set up like a Hotmail account for you know have an exhilarating email account that you know is going to be bombarded with junk mail set that up and just flush the recycle bin every so often and at least until you buy something here pretty much protected. You know, I've had them come to a few sites where they've actually can tell to the street address to the ZIP code. If you don't have they don't match up they won't Except the information they're pretty sophisticated. But that's pretty rare So suggestion. Well, I think that's very good advice and I think that just in Closing one of the things that we need to keep in mind in this whole discussion is that the internet does have a terrifically empowering benefit for consumers and consumers need to take advantage of that and they need to report problems, whether they whether you report them to your attorney general or you report them to the Federal Trade Commission. It's very very important because as a tendency to to think well, it's a little embarrassing I got kind of scammed here and I don't feel like telling anyone about that. Please report these problems because that's the only way that government agencies and consumer Advocates and others can collect enough information to correct some of the some of the problems that were that we're now seeing surface. (00:22:17) Thanks for joining us. (00:22:18) It's always my pleasure. Gary (00:22:20) can't argue with you, bye-bye. Jack Gillis who is the director of public affairs for the consumer Federation of America the CFA along with the center for the study of services is out with a new study today on internet shopping and although mr. Gillis has to leave our conversation will continue right after news headlines Robert Ellis who's with the center for the study of services will be joining us and we invite you to keep the phone's ringing here. If you've got a question about shopping on the internet any concerns or suggestions, give us a call here, six five. One two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free. That number is 1-800-222-8477. 6,000 one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight. We'll continue our conversation about shopping on the internet in just a couple minutes. Perhaps you've heard of those. Russian American artists who pull people on their artistic preferences that make (00:23:22) paintings based on that information. Well, they're (00:23:24) coming to st. Paul and they're bringing st. Paul's Most Wanted painting with (00:23:28) them. It's a very very blue landscape seriously if blue is the fall because preference for blue color and in Saint Paul is really overwhelming painting by numbers on the next Word of Mouth (00:23:42) this Friday night at 6:00. I'm Minnesota Public Radio invitation to join us over the noon hour today second hour of our midday program. We're going off to the Westminster Town Hall Forum. Betty Williams is speaking at Westminster today. She won the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1976 for her work to try to help children in Northern Ireland who were getting caught in the midst of all the violence in Northern Ireland. She has now expanded her focus and is trying to set up programs to help children all around the world to make sure that They are fed sheltered nurtured and protected from some of the ugliness around the world Betty Williams speaking today at the Westminster tonal form. Let's catch up on news headlines. And here is Kathleen Helen and Kathleen. Thank you Gary attorney general Janet Reno is calling on Congress to pass new gun control laws in the wake of the shootings this week in Hawaii and Seattle Renault cautions that investigators. Do not yet know how the gunman in the two latest shootings obtain their weapons and urged objectivity in the investigation. People are leaving flowers at the scene of yesterday's Shipyard shooting in Seattle as a massive search continues for the suspect two people were killed when a gunman in camouflage opened fire. One of the men is a former Minnesotan Russell brizendine grew up in Granite Falls. The boxing world has been hit with racketeering allegations officials have been indicted in New Jersey. They're accused of taking bribes to manipulate the rankings of boxers. The ibf is one of the sports three sanctioning organizations. The gay attack trial and Laramie. Wyoming is moving into the penalty phase today yesterday jurors convicted Aaron McKinney of Murder in the beating death of gay college student Matthew Shepard, the jury could give McKinney the death penalty for the killing a feminist bookstore. Minneapolis has settled its lawsuit with amazon.com the deal allows both parties to continue using the name Amazon and they agreed to take steps to ensure. There is no public confusion about which book seller is which other terms of the deal are confidential attorney general Mike Hatch and the state's leading Dairy companies have settled an antitrust lawsuit the lawsuit accused the dairies of fixing milk prices between 1985 and 1996 under a judge has ordered the lawsuit was dismissed without a finding of wrongdoing, but four of the five dairies are required to provide Minnesota food shelves. 50,000 gallons of milk for each of the next five years the state forecast includes a wind advisory this afternoon and tonight in Northwestern Minnesota. It will be mostly sunny and Mild in the East partly cloudy and windy in the west with highs from 50 in the arrowhead to 70 near Pipestone. This hour in Duluth is cloudy and 41 St. Clown cloudy and 41 as well in the Twin Cities under Cloudy Skies. It's 45 Gary. That's the news. All right. Thank you Kathleen. It's 27 minutes before noon and this hour of midday were talking about shopping on the internet. There's a new study out that warns consumers about some of the dangers and pitfalls lurking in cyberspace. The study was conducted by the consumer affairs Federation of America and the center for the study of services a nonprofit organization that was set up to provide consumers with information. They need to make better decisions in the marketplace joining us during this half-hour to talk some more about the study is Robert Ellis who's the director of public affairs for the CSS? And Again, we invite you to give us a call. If you've got a question about internet shopping number to call is six-five 12276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside, the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight 286512276 thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight Robert Ellis. Thank you for joining us. (00:27:39) Good morning. Glad to be here. (00:27:40) Now. You folks have actually developed a website now to help consumers work their way through the internet maze, correct? (00:27:47) Yes. Yes, we years ago before the dot-coms and Dot orgs ever existed. We had actually provided in print to a lot of consumers Shopping Guide called Bargains and basically was our attempt to provide people at their local markets with competitive prices on a host of big-ticket consumer products and maybe even more importantly make sure that all the retailers who were involved were adhering to consumer-friendly guidelines when the webcam And obviously it gave us an opportunity to take that product out too much larger group of consumers and potentially a much larger group of retailer participants as well. But it also brought with it a whole new set of problems to look out (00:28:30) for the what in your mind is the is the the one or two the biggest single problems that that are lurking out there for the would be internet Shopper. (00:28:43) I think in the short term. It's probably expectation. That isn't reality. I think most people would be surprised and certainly most consumers we've interviewed are very surprised that if you put a word into one of the search engines on one of the big web sites, like Yahoo were lycos or whatever that you don't always get back just an objective mechanical search of the internet for the word you put in a lot of sites are selling the words to advertisers. And in essence. Those people are now paying to be found. Well up on the search returns. You're putting in what you believe to be kind of an objective search. I think that's one of the big vulnerabilities in the short term and that most people simply don't know that the other is probably that if you use even a single Internet site different ways, you can actually get back dramatically different results. You could search for particular Camcorder for example, and if you clicked on one type of shopping link get back a totally different set of stores in prices, then you would get putting that same camcorder search into a different link on the same website. I think those are probably two of the biggest vulnerabilities right now and what consumers expect to find and what actually (00:29:57) happens what so what's behind the second of those two, I think the first one is relatively easy to understand though as you say maybe surprising. What about this second deal, whatever (00:30:07) the second one actually is very closely related to the first the more different roads a website can provide the more advertising. Words along that road it can sell so if it has Road one minute usually being like the search bar and they've been selling advertising in the like and selling keyword Returns on that search. Now if they also have a shopping link on the site that takes you to a different area they can go to yet a different set of merchants or even some of the same merchants and say hey look here's a totally different area that's going to have a lot of paid stores in it here that people can come shop in and you know, you'll get some people this way and some people this way but in either event if you pay to be here, you're more likely to be found, so I think it's really a way of kind of enhancing the revenue of the opportunities for the websites because they're really funding their operation totally on advertising dollars. (00:31:00) So it's not the sale of the product so much is the sale of the advertising that you encounter as you go shop for that (00:31:06) product. That's exactly right and we my staff recently was excited that we figured out a way to get more products and features onto one of our web pages on Bargains dot-org Altavista, which is another major. Search engine commercial search engine just reformulated themselves and they were very proud of the fact that they figured out to put how to put more ad space on the website search returns. So I think you know the motivations and the desires of what the commercial sites need to stay in business kind of distort the reality of what the consumers expect to find. (00:31:36) Well, let's get to some listener callers here. Robert Ellis is our guest he is with the center for the study of services the CSS along with the consumer affairs Federation of America is out with a new study today on internet shopping and some things that consumers should be aware of and if you'd like to join our conversation again, 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight Ralph your question, please (00:32:05) Yes, I guess it's in the realm of things consumers can do to maybe influence the way things develop. It seems to me that if it I applaud your show. It seems to me that if people using the internet to sell and maybe even legislators become aware that people are resisting using it because of concerns about privacy and so on that maybe those conditions will improve and so I'm urging people to make it known like like the previous speaker you had, you know, when there are problems let them know. I also wanted to Second the the come the comment of another caller about lying when you fill out the forms and so on I think as a great tactic and I wanted to pass on that you can use it locally at the supermarket discount cards those annoying little, you know things you can lie on most and get most of the advantages of the card. They can't write you and send you a point. That but you get most of it and thirdly it going a little further afield that the ATM surcharge thing, which is in the news now occurred to me that maybe another tactic we could do was maybe each of us can print up some out of order signs and little letters down at the bottom say due to surcharge as and post those every time you get annoyed by one of them. Okay consumer (00:33:26) striking back. Mr. Ellis (00:33:30) sounds like a little resistance movement growing but I think you know, the general context of being aware getting educated trying to figure out what's going on and then using two things both your complaint power to regulating agencies and the power of the purse. If you don't like it don't give them any of your money that will have a bigger impact. Do (00:33:49) you have any idea sir? I saw statistic indicating that only about 6% of the people who actually visit a retail shopping site online by anything is that largely because of concerns? That they're going to get ripped off. Is it just a question that they're looking around at different sites for the for a product that we know anything about (00:34:11) that have been a few studies trying to monitor exactly. What's causing that and the statistic that your site is within the range of the ones I've seen published in general. It seems that the reluctance is still geared towards the fear of floating a credit card number out on the web. Now. There's a pretty powerful movement afoot to make encrypted credit card transfers and processing on the web pretty generic across the board and to put in the the safeguards of you know, the only the vulnerability of the $50 first fifty dollar spent at cetera to try to overcome that kind of initial consumer reluctance. (00:34:49) Is that safe at this point though to give somebody on the on the internet your credit card number? (00:34:54) Well, you know, if if you're on a secure server, which most of the major shopping sites are I have to say that it probably is as safe as when you call in on a telephone and give it to someone on the phone. Mail order catalog. So in that regard, I think the fear is might be overstated. Now since the internet can has the potential of finding lots and lots of small shops who may have less sophisticated ordering systems. I think you do have to be aware as to whether the system they're using is on a secured system, which means that your numbers are being coded and (00:35:25) encrypted Jackie your question (00:35:27) place. I was just wondering do you feel this is going to have a far-reaching effect on the small business person and we in society always concerned about the small business person yet, you know going to this type of shopping seems another way of destroying the independent personal such as a book bookstore Record Store gift shop at cetera. I certainly think it could cut both ways. I mean the years that we've been doing price doing the bargains work and Publishing Bargains. We've certainly found that in many ways some of the small Independence the only tool they have to fight the huge advertising budgets of the large corporations is indeed price and that a lot of these companies are driven so much by their stockholders needs for profitability. Once they reach a certain size, but they're not inclined to be the aggressive Discounters they once were so we actually find a lot of the so called Mom and Pop or small Independence. We were actually able to compete and flourish because they have access to price competition and the ability to get their prices out in front of people that may never have been in a position to see them before. So I think guess there is a risk of these kind of large Consolidated organizations taking over as you mentioned in the in the book Arena by the same token. I think there's also some real opportunities for a lot of kind of aggressive smaller (00:36:45) Independence one thing. I'm wondering about it all along Those lines though. It seems like your chances of getting ripped off increase the more obscure the retailer maybe over time won't people tend to rely on the well-known big names and as a consequence the Mom and Pops really will get swamped here. (00:37:15) Well, I think I certainly agree with the latter part of that statement. And I think even now the tendency is to rely on the well-known big names in many ways just because they're positioned for you to continue to see them as the well-known big names. They're going to be the people who are able to buy the ads and placement right up front on all of these major search engines as far as as being obscure. I don't think obscurity in the world was the web necessarily means that you're dealing with a more unscrupulous company. You may have one of the best regarded small Independence in Go for example showing up on a web search when you live in Los Angeles to you there. No one it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be unscrupulous or you're going to be more vulnerable to being ripped off. It does mean that as in the case of spying anything. You need to know who you're buying from and what the situation is that you're buying in. (00:38:08) How can you find that (00:38:09) out? Well, I think with you know, it's one of the powerful tools of the web's is that there's a lot more information out there than just walking into stores. If you found a store named for example that you wanted to check out you can actually go look and databases for various rating services on their credit ratings their financial status. If there are public company, you can even go look and see what their situation is and how long they've been in business so you can actually check out the retailers in for more depth and a lot of cases than we could ever do just trying to shop in our own neighborhoods (00:38:40) Karen your question (00:38:41) Place. Actually. I have a comment that follows what the gentleman was just saying one mechanism for checking out. Is is also the Better Business Bureau and I haven't heard any mention of the Better Business Bureau logo, and also the Privacy seal that reputable companies are allowed to use on their websites. This provides consumers with protection both in the sense that anyone allowed to use the seal has been screened by the Better Business Bureau by not only getting information about them but on-site visits and their companies have to be reputable in order to be allowed to use that seal. So it gives consumers a great deal of protection and reputable companies have also applied to use what we call the Privacy seal which indicates that they have agreed not to pass on any information regarding the (00:39:33) buyer. Sounds like an extra tool for consumers to use. (00:39:38) Mr. Ellis. Sure. I think you know if you look around right now, you see a lot of sites starting to try to pay attention to meeting those public concerns and you'll see the little privacy certification SEALS or the or the BBS seal every every little movement like that down through the total shopping path. I think is a plus for consumers because it can give them is one more level of assurance that there's been some checking done on some aspect of how this business is engaging on the web. (00:40:06) But at this point there isn't anyone seal of approval that people could look for across the (00:40:12) board. That's correct. There's there's multiple multiple companies and certification systems that are going in place. There are certain there are multiple certifications even to tell you if the website processing is secure, but I think the previous caller is right in that one or more of those certainly can put you in a more comfortable position than having. None of those. (00:40:32) Robert Ellis is with us. He's the director of public affairs. For the center for the study of services the CSS along with consumer affairs Federation of America is out with a new study today talking about what consumers should know when they go online to buy products internet shopping. And if you have a quick question would like to get it on before we wrap up here six five. One two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight Aaron question morning. Yes. Good morning (00:41:04) gentlemen, I'm I just wanted to ask. Mr. Alice for his opinion. I actually was recently the victim of an Internet RIP off and it wasn't a major deal. We're only talking about 40 bucks here. But basically what happened was I tried to purchase an item from a company in Canada and I sent foolishly paid in cash because the website actually did say that the company Longer accepted checks and obviously should have smelled a rat right at that point, but foolishly foolishly advisors. It was I went ahead and put some cash in an envelope and sent ITS Canada. This was about seven weeks ago and despite leaving numerous messages at the company number that was on the website. I have not received a call back and needless to say I haven't received anything in the mail so I can only conclude that my money's gone has been ripped off. So I just wanted to get Mr. Ellis's comments. Do I have any is there anything I can do? Basically? Yeah. I'm not sure that I have much of much of encouraging assistance for you, especially since the transaction occurred outside of the US. I'm not sure what the what the consumer affairs agency situation is in Canada. If that's your able to identify that that equivalent in Canada. I certainly contact them or the equivalent of their Attorneys General. I will tell you that one of the things that he is a real. Durability on the web that hasn't been discussed very much is the fact that it becomes easier and easier to do business outside of the country and the consumer protection laws that apply in the United States in many cases simply have absolutely no wait, once you've conducted a transaction outside of the United States and may leave you with little recourse at all and your case. I think the proximity to the u.s. Certainly would encourage me to make a couple of calls to see if they have some regulatory agencies that might help him (00:43:04) in general though. You're often times left with being able to do nothing more than jump up and down and kick yourself (00:43:11) and learn from the mistake. I mean as the caller says there were some red flags and you know, you need to become more and more sensitive to those especially if you're going to shop on the web (00:43:21) how hard is it to return merchandise once you buy it online is that difficult tedious process or are the reputable online dealers more than happy to take your stuff back and give you your (00:43:35) Yeah, I think it just depends on who you buy it from you should always make sure just as they fully divulge their shipping policies up front. They also fully divulge their return policies up front if you're on a store website or you're about to make a purchase from the store and you don't know those two things and you can't easily find out those two things and I think you have a big red flag waving stores that have solid policies that are going to deal with you fairly. They're anxious to get those policies up on the web so that you (00:44:03) know, and in terms of buying via the auction sites, yeah, is that a separate category altogether or is it pretty much operate the same way as dealing with a regular online (00:44:14) retailer that's really a different that's kind of a totally different in different environment to deal in because you're dealing with a lot of individuals rather than kind of known corporate entities and you have the added Wrinkle in there of are you going into a situation where you don't know what you should be paying to begin with which always Makes you more vulnerable to paying too much (00:44:38) Jim here question. Please (00:44:40) been wondering I've been going to talk City. They've got kind of a QVC type of thing going there and everywhere that everything that I've researched and everything. I've bought I have not been able to find anywhere cheaper it they've got just the $3 shipping charge. They actually send out a return label in case you want to send whatever back I was wondering how long you think that someone can keep up something like this because I'm feeling like they've got to be losing money. Well, that's a tough one to answer that mean. There's been prognosticators on Wall Street who have wondered what how it lasted this long. So I really think you have to know what the total kind of corporate picture is how much advertising Revenue are they generating they have other sources of income into the corporation that are offsetting some of their development but I think in the short term if you found a supplier who you think is got competitive prices and seems upfront and fair and reputable then, you know, stay with them. Chuck your question. Yeah recently. I tried to book online a ticket with a local upstart Airline here and got back to the combination of my name my credit card number in the address that I had put down didn't match up and they couldn't they couldn't complete the transaction tried a number of different iterations and whatever the program was that they were using. It just wouldn't let me complete the transaction. What do you sort of do when you run into that kind of a situation call your credit card company what's happening there? Is that more and more credit card companies now are asking for name address verification to associate with the credit card number and they're looking forward to an exact match between how the billing address is registered and the information that the merchant is sending through for the verification if those two things don't match up it gets kicked out. So if you run into a situation like that first, make sure that your the name and address you frequently use is the same as what appears on your billing statement from that credit card. If that's still causes a problem, you need to call your credit card agency and find out where the problem (00:46:39) lies in general. Mr. Ellis. Our price is lower on the (00:46:42) internet. I would say that if you do a really thorough search you can find prices as low as you'd find if you could get all of the retailers in your kind of brick and mortar stores to compete against one another for your business. So it really becomes a question of work. I think rather than actual price (00:47:01) point if you're just going to click on though and not do a lot of shopping around odds are that you'll end up paying about the same. (00:47:12) Well, it could be a lot more. I mean really it's yours vulnerable as if you walked into any store off the street and just bought without knowing I mean in our own shopping cart, we found products that you know, that was three hundred and fifty dollars at its low price-point and 550 dollars at a Thai price point if you clicked on the $550 link, you paid $200 too much (00:47:34) your Be Shopper. I'm sure mr. Ellis. Do you have any qualms about buying stuff on the (00:47:39) internet? No, I don't. I my qualms are really more of time for as convenient as the internet is supposed to be I have to go through the same kind of shopping checks that we're encouraging every other consumer to do meaning. I have to check a bunch of different websites. I have to go through multiple different lengths just to make sure that I'm looking at realistic low pricing and in many ways. I think it's only when we get through that time consumption that it really becomes to me a convenient shopping tool in terms of qualms though. I have very (00:48:10) few and if they want to find your website, (00:48:14) we operate at www.beertown.org so Arjuna because we're nonprofit. (00:48:19) Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you Robert Ellis who's the director of public affairs for the center for the study of services the CSS and consumer Federation of America out with a new study today on internet shopping.