Chapter 4 Bank Services

Today, consumers can purchase limitless products and services on-line. Amazon.com is one of the companies that has made this possible. In July 1995, Jeff Bezos transformed book buying into a fast, easy, and enjoyable shopping experience. Amazon is pleased to maintain a commitment to customer satisfaction, pleased that 10 million people in more than 160 countries use the Amazon site, pleased to offer a wide range of shopping services and partnership opportunities and proud that they are the leading on-line shopping site. Amazon.com has expanded beyond selling just books, and now a variety of products and services may be purchased through this company. These products and services include online auctions, electronic greeting cards, CDs, videos, toys, games and electronics.

Amazon offers an e-mail subscription service that provides the latest reviews of exceptional new titles. This on-line service also makes it easy to find foreign editions by offering an international site. Remaining true to customers means offering a safe shopping guarantee. This guarantee states that Amazon stands behind the products and services that they offer.

The Amazon family of Web sites includes PlanetAll.com; this site is a reminder service dealing with calendars and address books. Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/, is a source of information on more than 150,000 movies and entertainment programs. Amazon is also the sole provider of live-event auctions on the Internet.

Amazon has been making substantial progress in e-commerce. Sales grew from $148 million in 1997 to $610 million in 1998. Customer accounts increased from 1.5 million at the end of 1997, to 6.2 million at the end of 1998.

All this information and more can be found at www.amazon.com.

Problem:

Preparation:

In preparation for this problem, first:

• Read questions thoroughly
• Locate additional Web sites
• Organize information

Questions:

1. Amazon.com offers a safe shopping guarantee, which protects the customer while shopping at Amazon.com. Individuals may still feel it is not safe to use credit cards to place orders over the Internet. Amazon guarantees that every transaction is 100% safe. This means you pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to your card as a result of shopping at Amazon.com. Research the Amazon.com Web site and answer the following questions.
   1. Explain what type of software is used by Amazon.com to insure the customer's privacy.
   2. Explain in detail the 100% guarantee given by Amazon.com.
   3. Research on the Internet the Fair Credit Billing Act. Summarize the information and give the URL along with the date that the information was collected.
2. There are a number of software programs available to assist in processing transactions using major credit cards. One such program is PC-Charge. This proven, sophisticated computer software program lets a business process all major credit cards -Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, Carte Blanche - right their own PCs and automatically deposits the transaction amount into an existing bank account. PC-based processing is faster and more efficient than older transaction processing methods, and results in reduced expenses and increased profits. Go to http://hallogram.com/pccharge/index.html, and answer the following questions.
   1. Explain how PC-Charge can help reduce errors and fraud.
   2. Explain how PC-Charge can do more than save time and money.
3. Consider the following statement: If a check accepted for partial payment is marked "payment in full," the payee may be agreeing to wipe out the rest of the debt.
   1. Go to www.townusa.com/workplace/check.html. Read the article "A Check With a 'Payment in Full' Endorsement," and discuss what is meant by the statement above.

Answer questions in sentence form and include the date the information was collected.

© Copyright 2000 Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.