Fraud

[ldcdc]

Unfortunately online fraud is an ever growing phenomenon, and hosts must face this unseen enemy with clear procedures, especially as fraud is often connected to spamming and spammers who can create havoc on their servers.

I'm curious to hear from hosts some of their more interesting experiences related to fraud, or even about customers who try to "skip" a payment here and there. What you did, what did you learn, how much the experience has cost you in the end etc.

[Coupons]

Dan to be honest I can't post personal stories here about fraud. What I can say is that a few weeks ago Godaddy gave me a free service subscription by mistake, and email them stating that I didn't want it for free, and that they should give info about how to send them money for it.

I bet they were surprised

[ldcdc]

Well, lucky them as it appears you actually needed that service. In any case, nice gesture on your part!

[Coupons]

I had the membership for free, but I contacted them stating that I want to pay for it, so they just said that I could signup again. Now I have 2 memberships, even if I only use 1 (to sell my domains) :p

[ldcdc]

Now that's an amusing situation all right! 

[crislem]

That is indeed quite an interesting situation. You are a very nice person and customer to have. They were ok too because they didn't just fix the problem, they "suffered the consequences" for their mistake telling you to just get a new membership if you want to make things kind of the way they were supposed to be in the first place. Anyway, interesting.

[hostzio]

A good way to elimate a few chargebacks is to verify that the person your hosting, is real! use anti fraud solutions such as maxmind, they seem to cut back a lot of fraud chargebacks.

[ldcdc]

There's also http://www.varilogix.com, to automatically call the customer for confirmation of the purchase.

[shanee86]

 I have to say haven't recieved many fraud payments. I have recieved some but I use paypal and paypal caught it or someone complained and so paypal took money back and I deleted the account. No big deal that is also why I like using paypal. But yes I have some that forget to pay and I have to remind them and that is pretty innoying but thats part of the bussiness I guess.

[ldcdc]

But yes I have some that forget to pay and I have to remind them and that is pretty innoying but thats part of the bussiness I guess.

Automated recurring charging can help.

Customers that become notorious for not paying on time need to be taught a lesson at some point. Too much leniency will eventually make some of them feel almost like they're somehow entitled to pay late.

[shanee86]

 Yes we have a automated script and it handles most payments. But we also have some manual setup account's and those I have to handle by hand. I also don't just trust the script things can go wrong or it can mess up. So I also check by hand and take care of some that need to be taken care of.