High Number of Paypal Chargebacks This Month?

[Shelley]

So you did not chargeback.

Another customer buys another addon.
It's full with bugs.
The customer asking for bugfixing.
The developer does not care at all.
The customer asking the developer for a refund.
The developer does not want to refund the money.
Have you seen such dramas?

The customer finally use the chargeback.

He's automatically banned.

Don't give me hypothetical situations. Give me something real? That's really all I can say as a response.

 

[whynot]

Don't give me hypothetical situations. Give me something real? That's really all I can say as a response.

Don't make tough rules without first thinking of the consequences.
Because of the planned bans the customer who is actually right, gets upset of the ban and leaves XenForo.
Another XenForo developer cannot sell anything to that customer.
XenForo loses renewals.
Who cares?

 

[Anthony Parsons]

I could give you a legitimate situation here... the blog product by XenFluence. Over a year and still not even close to a stable, useable, product. It is filled with bugs yet expect paying customers to suck it up.

I am not interested in a debate about xenfluence either... just stating a legitimate example.

Whilst I am a believer that chargebacks are dodgy with software, I must also agree that there are legitimate times for a chargeback.

There have also been times where a developer has appeared, released something for purchase, then disappeared and wiped their product from here. It has also happened with a dev no longer supporting XF, yet takes money from customers the day, and week, prior to them wiping all their products and leaving customers high and dry.

 

[Shelley]

I could give you a legitimate situation here... the blog product by XenFluence. Over a year and still not even close to a stable, useable, product. It is filled with bugs yet expect paying customers to suck it up.

I am not interested in a debate about xenfluence either... just stating a legitimate example.

Whilst I am a believer that chargebacks are dodgy with software, I must also agree that there are legitimate times for a chargeback.

There have also been times where a developer has appeared, released something for purchase, then disappeared and wiped their product from here. It has also happened with a dev no longer supporting XF, yet takes money from customers the day, and week, prior to them wiping all their products and leaving customers high and dry.

If I had such an experience I would then ask for a refund from the developer. I personally was happy with that project and actually donated to it. I agree it goes both ways but there is a huge different imo between (not fast enough development) and outright stealing for no apparent reason but to steal.

 

[Shelley]

Don't make tough rules without first thinking of the consequences.
Because of the planned bans the customer who is actually right, gets upset of the ban and leaves XenForo.
Another XenForo developer cannot sell anything to that customer.
XenForo loses renewals.
Who cares?

I think you'll find you are the one skipping questions you couldn't give me an example so the lack of thought is on your part. I could have given you one, but won't mention the authors name since everyone is likely to know who it is but I strongly believe he should not be releasing paid add-ons.

Regarding the Resource Manager it should go both ways but like I mentioned above there is a difference between possibly buggy add-ons that will be fixed to downright stealing. Big difference. I challenge you to release a paid resource you worked hard on and then come back with the same mindset that you have now after your hardwork ends up costing you more than it pays off.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

but there is a huge different imo between (not fast enough development) and outright stealing for no apparent reason but to steal.

Not when a developer gives customers timelines for releases, then completely tosses them out the door. A month or two is one thing... a year is a whole other kettle of fish. That is the very close to the same thing IMHO. The equivalent is a builder telling you they will have your house built by Dec 13, you pay them money, and they've barely finished half of it by Dec 14. Have they stolen your money on a false premise?

Is that still fair and just? IMO, it isn't. IMO, all of these people should be put into the same basket and restricted from resource access here for ripping XF customers off.

The above example is just an example, there have been a few I've seen do this over the years, along with selling, deleting and leaving.

I think it's frustrating... there are levels of dishonesty occurring, and XF need to step in and stop it because they have chosen to host all this on their business site, and not distance themselves like competitors by using an off-shoot domain run by devs or such.

 

[whynot]

Regarding the Resource Manager it should go both ways but like I mentioned above there is a difference between possibly buggy add-ons that will be fixed to downright stealing.

In your opinion as a developer they differ.
In my opinion as a customer a buggy software which is not fixed in reasonable time is stealing.

So our opinion differs.

 

[Walter]

Once we are notified of a chargeback/dispute/review, they no longer have access as a licensed customer, so no access to Resources Manager.

Agreed. I think the customer has to do the research before he buys an addon - so no reason for a chargeback.

But how about developers here on the forum taking money from customers and not delivering anything? What will Xenforo do about this? Its too late for a chargeback and he claims he has no money to refund me (but probnably still receives money from people here). And no, I won't say a name in public.

 

[Sage Knight]

If a trader feedback system can be implemented for devs and customers it can be also useful to an extent. What could be even more better is if the feedback remains the same and intact for all forums accounts pertaining to the licence. It's more fair and can easily be used by everyone and not just devs.

 

[Sheldon]

Nothing is going to change here at XF, that has been stated.

You need all devs to jump on board, do everything at a site where that is the primary focus. add prefixes stating how long in BETA, last add-on activity, authors last seen date, what version it works with, a PROPER feedback system ( not 5 stars because of who it is)etc.

You could do a bit more protection for the developer and the end user that way, but it's not going to happen here at XF. it won't happen elsewhere either because odd the argument that everything should be in one place.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

It is a pickle

 

[RobParker]

it won't happen elsewhere either because odd the argument that everything should be in one place.

I'd say it's more the unreliability of 3rd parties. Xenfans was great, so was your site but neither lasted. It wasn't yours or Floris's job so that's fair enough but it's clearly made everyone wary of contributing to anything similar.

 

[Sheldon]

Neither of those sites are what I was talking about. xFS was to show off sites, not protect add-on developers and purchasers.

 

[RobParker]

Neither of those sites are what I was talking about. xFS was to show off sites, not protect add-on developers and purchasers.

It's still a 3rd party site and so far the only successful ones have folder due to the owners quitting.

(I'm not having a go, like I said it wasn't your job so it's understandable what happens to XFS).

 

[iTuN3r]

At the end of the day unless this happens on XF nothing is going to change . Trying it somewhere else apart from xenforo is not going to last long .

 

[Sheldon]

At the end of the day unless this happens on XF nothing is going to change . Trying it somewhere else apart from xenforo is not going to last long .

Exactly what I said above.

Unless it is someone who depends on xF for their livelihood, it's not going to work.

 

[Adam Howard]

So you did not chargeback.

Another customer buys another addon.
It's full with bugs.
The customer asking for bugfixing.
The developer does not care at all.
The customer asking the developer for a refund.
The developer does not want to refund the money.
Have you seen such dramas?

The customer finally use the chargeback.

He's automatically banned, no questions asked.

I have not had that experience from anyone here (thus far).

Maybe I've been lucky or maybe I've made smart purchases (I am after all very picky on what I'm willing to pay for). So I've not had that experience from any developers here on XenForo (did twice through on IPB though).

In such a hypothetical moment... Yes, I'd charge it back & Paypal would make all the easier. But that should be used as a last resort & not just standard practice.

Thankfully the quality of development here on XenForo has been outstanding (reviewed it as such here)

 

[mistypants]

So you did not chargeback.

Another customer buys another addon.
It's full with bugs.
The customer asking for bugfixing.
The developer does not care at all.
The customer asking the developer for a refund.
The developer does not want to refund the money.
Have you seen such dramas?

The customer finally use the chargeback.

He's automatically banned, no questions asked.

This can be rather easily remedied by smart purchasing. Shelling out money for an add-on without

1. Fully reading its description & checking demos to understand the full extent of its functionality
2. Checking the attached thread to understand how well the developer supports the add-on
3. Researching the developer to see how well they keep up their other add-ons
4. Reading the reviews for the add-on in the RM (which would certainly reflect major bugs and the developer's responsiveness)

is just foolish. Would you buy a computer without researching it and reading the reviews? Would you buy a house without seeing it first? Don't spend money without researching first. I imagine that banning someone from the RM for chargebacks would not be the developer contacting XF, reporting the person, and them being automatically banned. I would assume some research would be put into the case--why the user did chargeback, how they first attempted to talk to the developer, etc.

Closing out legitimate customers is something no one wants, and from this thread it doesn't seem as though chargebacks are that commonplace that there would be an inundation of reports. But in order for XF to maintain a developer-friendly environment, there should be some kinds of protection against stealing, just as there's protection against pirating XF.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

I could give you a legitimate situation here... the blog product by XenFluence. Over a year and still not even close to a stable, useable, product. It is filled with bugs yet expect paying customers to suck it up.

I am not interested in a debate about xenfluence either... just stating a legitimate example.

Whilst I am a believer that chargebacks are dodgy with software, I must also agree that there are legitimate times for a chargeback.

There have also been times where a developer has appeared, released something for purchase, then disappeared and wiped their product from here. It has also happened with a dev no longer supporting XF, yet takes money from customers the day, and week, prior to them wiping all their products and leaving customers high and dry.

I'm more than happy to take your business with Better Blogs
Responsive layout, integrated tagging, drafts saving, a unified page container, customization .. and bunch of other stuff.

... But let's be fair here. I was looking at XI Blog and it is well coded, it works really good, it does the multi-author stuff good, and it is completely functional. Other than removing the "beta" label on that, the software is ready for prime time. If that had been around when I started coding Better Blogs I would not have any need to do my own software.

And they have a public demo, so if you buy, then chargeback, that would probably mean lack of research.

 

[Kerrus]

One thing that might be worth looking into is coding your add-on with a limited license, where every X days it needs to renew its license. If someone has paid legitimately and not chargebacked, then it will just contact your site with the relevant info and check if it's still valid- if so, it will automatically renew.

This still could be problematic to make and include, but outside of a more stringent purchasing process, it's all I can think of for preventing chargeback based theft.

I currently admin a large gaming server that includes the ability to purchase unique functionality- and we see a degree of chargebacks occuring. While we can just ban the user from accessing the server, it doesn't address the fundamental issue of avoiding the chargebacks themselves.

To that end we've been working on setting up a system where a user gets provisional functionality when they purchase access, up until a 'confirmation of legitimate purchase' can go through to whatever they used to pay- be it their bank or credit card provider.

Because we, as the provider of the service they are buying access to are going out of our way to contact their method of payment provider, it allows us to protect against chargebacks as the user must first confirm that the charges are not fraudulent (which is where 90% of bank/credit card based chargebacks originate).

It's very simple for someone to pay for something online, 'acknowledge it' in a text note or something, and then call their bank and go "My 10 year old son bought a ferari with my credit card on the internet!" and get the charges reversed.