Back in March, I presented the IS 6100 course material on e-commerce. In my Thursday night class on March 15, I tried to explain non-repudiation. I could have done a better job.
Non-repudiation addresses a key component of e-commerce. Neither the merchant nor the customer should be able to deny that they entered into a contract regarding an exchange of goods or services. Receipts and other financial records are evidence of the contract.
Short version: if you bought or sold something, you can’t get out of the deal by saying you didn’t do it!
Here’s an article from today’s New York Times that is a great example. Michelle Slatalla chronicles her discussions with customer service reps and e-commerce experts as she tries to determine what cryptic merchant names like WLI*RESEREVATIONREWARDS.CO. were doing on her credit card statement. Her husband had subscribed to a discount rewards program in 2005 when he bought movie tickets at Fandango, with a recurring $10 monthly charge.
PayPal users often see entries like PAYPAL* on their bank and credit card statements. PayPall does have a resolution center and a security page that can help people dispute or research transactions.
I make many online transactions each year, and my card statements are loaded with these obscure line item details. So I’ve cobbled together my own knowledge management (KM) system to help me find these web transactions quickly.
Use a webmail account from Gmail, MSN or Yahoo as the primary email address for the transaction, and most web merchants will email the receipt there. Use the search feature to find the transaction details when needed. As a bonus, the webmail service’s spam filters provide additioanl protection from merchants who resell customer information.
For years, I’ve saved the web receipt for transactions as PDF files. It’s easy to do with a PDF program like CutePDF. I mentioned this on February 21 when I discussed how to submit papers to TurnItIn.com.
On a Mac, this process is even easier. Macs come with a standard folder called Web Receipts that Safari can use to store these PDFs. Just select Print to Web Receipts in Safari.
Firefox users can just use the Save to PDF in the Print dialog and save the page as a PDF.
Quicken and QuickBooks users can store PDF receipts as a part of their transactions. It’s a great way to consolidate this information. This can also help when preparing income tax returns, because the PDF receipts will be easier to find.
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