Online Transactions: Expert Sues For Caution

The General Manager of
Basic Information and Communication System Limited (BICS), Mrs Olamide Fashola, last Monday urged Nigerians to exercise extra caution when transacting business via e-commerce.
Fashola said in an interview with newsmen in Abuja that most Nigerians were indifferent to the terms and conditions attached to a particular good or service before use.
“Most of the e-commerce sites for shopping basically have a return policy; if what was delivered to you is not what you ordered you can return it within a certain number of days.
“It’s always clearly stated, so you call them immediately and you can apply the refund policy.
“I will advise Nigerians to be patient and another thing is that most times we don’t read details.
“We don’t read between the lines; we buy things that come with manuals that we don’t even read what is called terms and conditions, such things are always attached to everything.
“Whether e-commerce or otherwise, there are always terms and conditions and most cases those things are clearly stated, but funny, I myself don’t read it.
“It’s until I fall into that situation I also begin to make noise. But I also know that I cannot get my money within 24 hours. I’d advise Nigerians to be patient.
“Nigerians are just trying to adopt on-line forms of payment; but on-line forms of payment depend on the type of connectivity you are using; something could happen.”
Fashola said some of the problems encountered while transacting business via e-commerce could be caused by bad connectivity since it was a new approach to commerce in the country.
She added that when transactions were done on-line and people did’t get what was requested, the best thing to do would be to forward a mail to the customer relations person so as to start the process of refund.
On the Smart Woman Initiative of the Ministry of Communication Technology she said it was a very laudable scheme.
“I love the initiative and I would like to be a part of it.
“The truth of the matter is that we are at the fore-front of the home, the husband is the head of the family but the woman is the one that does the thinking.
“Recently, I came across ‘omoalata.com’ it’s a website where you can actually buy pepper for those of us that work from 8:00am to 8:00pm and you want blended pepper delivered to your house.
“It’s making life easier for another person, living a smart life is more like technology-driven in everything.
“You can actually do a lot of things using technology without having to burn energy to achieve these things.
“I don’t have to leave my office to quickly rush to the market to buy pepper and blend it and take it to my home; I can just place the order on a site and then it gets delivered to my house.
“That is what being a smart woman is all about, being able to use technology, to achieve a lot of things.’’
Fashola expressed optimism that the programme would be replicated in other states of the federation so that more women and girls could benefit from it.
The Basic Information and Communication System Limited (BICS) is a licensee of the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT).