Fraud Clients Report Thread

[meSingh]

I have seen many people complaining about clients that do fraud and take the work created by many authors here. Even i got a client a few weeks ago who first paid for my theme then created a dispute in paypal for it and due to a small mistake in handling this issue he was able to get that money back.

I thought it would be great if we have a central thread for reporting these type or clients and have there information here for other authors to check in case they ever need to check.

I can make a list for this here but i am not sure if this will be useful for you all or not and would like to know your opinions on this.

 

[Ingenious]

I think this might be problematic. I'm not disputing the good intentions but how can admin/mods know who is right and who is wrong when it comes to accusations of fraud? What if someone abuses this to cause trouble? What if someone defames or libels someone else? Who is going to police this?

I agree it would be great to name and shame these people, but nearly every forum I know, especially company, business or corporate stay well clear of name and shame for good reasons

 

[meSingh]

You are right. I didn`t thought in that way. This is why i wanted some opinions before creating an actual list.

But i still think we need some way. Probably not as i described above but some other way?

 

[Slavik]

Unfortunately its not something we can allow here. It creates too many issues with verifying legitimate fraud and people trying to screw someone over because of an arguement.

 

[tenants]

PhoneVerify can be used for anti fraud (for upgrade workflows), there is also the maxMind anti fraud API that you can probably set up with AnyApi (which is free, but maxMind charge for their API)

 

[meSingh]

Unfortunately its not something we can allow here. It creates too many issues with verifying legitimate fraud and people trying to screw someone over because of an arguement.

I can understand that Slavik. I will not create anything like that. but still i would like to know what other think about this.

PhoneVerify can be used for anti fraud (for upgrade workflows), there is also the maxMind anti fraud API that you can probably set up with AnyApi (which is free, but maxMind charge for their API)

I am not sure how that works(maxmind) but i don`t think its gona work. People i am talking about are not bots or regular spammers. They are just like you and i. I seriously think any script or mechanism can not prevent these type of frauds. . It needs to be reviewed manually i believe.

 

[tenants]

I am not sure how that works(maxmind) but i don`t think its gona work. People i am talking about are not bots or regular spammers. They are just like you and i. I seriously think any script or mechanism can not prevent these type of frauds. . It needs to be reviewed manually i believe.

AnyApi+MaxMind: Yes, they are humans and many humans that commit fraud have often done it before... maxmind keep a record of frequent offenders. They base the risk on the following values: risk of IP address, high risk email, or anonymizing proxy (read the link above about how it works)... but, you still might get the infrequent human that hasn't been caught yet

PhoneVerify: People that commit fraud often won't want to leave their real phone number with you (you can contact them, and might also be able to track them down), so the phoneVerify workflow is fairly affective for this.. You can also ban phone extenstions of certain countries (hard to get around), and make sure they can only ever annoy you once (then you ban them, and unless they have multiple phone numbers, they cant ever upgrade even with a fake account + proxies)

StopCountrySpam: You could even use StopCountrySpam (since, I hate to say this, but a high % of fraud does come from certain countries)... having said that, it's not always an option for some forums.

If they are legitimate users, and have only ever done this once, is it actually fraud, or is there a reason that they've done this? Simply make sure you never work with them in the future

 

[meSingh]

Thanks tenants for explaining all this. But i currently don`t many many products to sell and all these things will make the per transaction cost to around double of what i pay now.

And about the StopCountrySpam: Well i don`t want to say anything about this, just accept i can`t use this system due to some good reasons.

 

[tenants]

For PhoneVerify,
the Twilo out bound messages is 4 cents (this is only going to happen once per user), so that's a cost of potentially 4 cents (for multiple upgrades) for one user
the clicktel price can be as little as 2.7p

You wont have to pay this per transaction (once the user is phone verified.. that's it, they can then use multiple upgrades)

If you consider that for these prices, you are making money on these transactions (£10 - 2.7p)... then it's not really very much

clicktel prices: http://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing
twillo prices: http://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing

StopContrySpam (that's available free here (with branding), or paid here).. then, you can use a free look up JSON request site (if you could use this)

For Maxmind, from their site, the prices start at $0.005 per transaction

If fraud is really bothering you, paying 2.7p on a users (once) that makes a transaction isn't very costly

 

[meSingh]

Looks like i checked the wrong price list for this.

I will do some more digging about this and may bug you for a some help.

 

[tenants]

I haven't tested AnyApi + Maxmind, but there is no reason it shouldn't work, AnyApi is designed to work with... well, any api But, you'll be checking each user on registration (so that's not great)... PhoneVerify is diretly designed for the fraud situation (just upgrades)

If AnyApi doesn't support the API, then let me know, and I'll add some more options to AnyApi / send you the configuration you need to use

 

[Alpha1]

I really like how freelancer.com and elance.com work. They have an i-trader like feedback system and an escrow payment system with milestone payments. These are real nice safeguards to prevent things from getting out of hand too much.

It would be nice to see something like that implemented on XenForo.com but as long as it is not, its not a bad idea to use a website that has these services. You do pay for the services, but its a good way to start to know a coder/designer/client.

XenForo LTD could financially benefit from such a system.

 

[Mike Edge]

xF already had a lawsuit, they don't need another. Your intention is in the right place, this is just not the proper arena to go about it at.