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Manual setup, a necessity in the LE industry
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Manual setup, a necessity in the LE industry

CableChiefCableChief Member
edited April 2016 in General

Firstly, yes, I fully understand that advertising to the low end segment has exposed us more to the risk of bad customers and I'm not complaining about that, it's something to unfortunately be expected.

Overall fraud rates are relatively low, I can say roughly 5-6% of dodgy orders slipped through the automated net, which isn't so bad but doesn't scale up very well for larger numbers of customers. I've tried a variety of combinations of fraud prevention modules and have settled with MaxMind, as is standard with most hosts. (FraudLabs Pro was sketchy to say the very least). FraudRecord, taken with a pinch of salt and manual verification seems to be the only truly effective method (duh, I can hear you say).

Do other providers in this area feel the same way? I know a lot of you do offer automated setup, but I certainly feel as if this is a convenience I'd rather do away with to save headaches. I understand that customers might be put off by that and that patience is hard to find nowadays, but quality > quantity at the end of the day.

Comments

  • AlbaHostAlbaHost Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2016

    @CableChief said:
    Firstly, yes, I fully understand that advertising to the low end segment has exposed us more to the risk of bad customers and I'm not complaining about that, it's something to unfortunately be expected.

    Overall fraud rates are relatively low, I can say roughly 5-6% of dodgy orders slipped through the automated net, which isn't so bad but doesn't scale up very well for larger numbers of customers. I've tried a variety of combinations of fraud prevention modules and have settled with MaxMind, as is standard with most hosts. (FraudLabs Pro was sketchy to say the very least). FraudRecord, taken with a pinch of salt and manual verification seems to be the only truly effective method (duh, I can hear you say).

    Do other providers in this area feel the same way? I know a lot of you do offer automated setup, but I certainly feel as if this is a convenience I'd rather do away with to save headaches. I understand that customers might be put off by that and that patience is hard to find nowadays, but quality > quantity at the end of the day.

    We use maxmind aswell, but all our services are manual setup (except for domain registration which it can't be deleted once is registered) due for security reasons.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    Manual setup is fine.

    Anyone not willing to wait a few business hours for sub-$7, I wouldn't want as a customer anyway.

  • @Nyr said:
    Manual setup is fine.

    Anyone not willing to wait a few business hours for sub-$7, I wouldn't want as a customer anyway.

    Exactly my point, I certainly don't judge the industry based off this minority of the unreasonable however it is a shame.

  • We also use maxmind with automated setup but we also check orders manually at end of the day. If their is something we do not like we just cancel and refund.

  • Manual setup for the first order is the best sop i think.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @starservices said:
    We also use maxmind with automated setup but we also check orders manually at end of the day. If their is something we do not like we just cancel and refund.

    So you terminate already activated services. Great way to annoy customers...

  • @Nyr said:

    @starservices said:
    We also use maxmind with automated setup but we also check orders manually at end of the day. If their is something we do not like we just cancel and refund.

    So you terminate already activated services. Great way to annoy customers...

    That awkward moment when you already migrating your production site to the new vps you purchase then suddenly your vps is cancelled and you're given refund. LOL.

  • cececece Member

    yeah ,ordered && paid one at about 20 hours ago. being suspended just after i have done my configuration in about 15minute( could not remember). was blocked by the site . until I file a ticket than I was asked for a id photo . about 5 hours after I upload the photo , my boxes are back . really nice . so I asked for a refund , this time I receive a bunch of mail telling that my service were terminated instantly .

    quite happy experence.

  • @Nyr said:

    @starservices said:
    We also use maxmind with automated setup but we also check orders manually at end of the day. If their is something we do not like we just cancel and refund.

    So you terminate already activated services. Great way to annoy customers...

    Rare it comes to that use to get loads of issues with fraud but not anymore, this only done after we request ID and is not forth coming.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Nyr said:
    So you terminate already activated services. Great way to annoy customers...

    One should terminate fraud when they recognize it, even if it gets past the initial filters. There are plenty of ways to recognize obvious, clear fraud before it comes to chargebacks. I'm talking like stolen credit cards or Paypal accounts, that kind of fraud. It happens, any provider not looking out for it and reacting when appropriate doesn't care about their customers.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @jarland said:
    One should terminate fraud when they recognize it, even if it gets past the initial filters. There are plenty of ways to recognize obvious, clear fraud before it comes to chargebacks. I'm talking like stolen credit cards or Paypal accounts, that kind of fraud. It happens, any provider not looking out for it and reacting when appropriate doesn't care about their customers.

    I understand that fraud needs to deal with. I think everyone understands also that there are also false positives, even with a human checking manually. Nobody is perfect.

    Thanked by 1jar
  • Nyr said: I understand that fraud needs to deal with. I think everyone understands also that there are also false positives, even with a human checking manually. Nobody is perfect.

    Sounds good. I just wanted to put in a comment from the customer's perspective. I recently got a VPS from Abc-Hosters and noticed they did something other's don't do. They showed a clear list of the thing you need to do to avoid getting wrongly caught in their fraud filter. For example, turn off your VPN. Knowing that I can just sign up from another computer and save 20 minutes of being pissed off. Same goes for other demands that a customer may or may not have thought about.

    I suggest that others make their demands clear as well. Perhaps even list right up front what measures you're using. For example, if you're using the incompetent and despicable Maxmind, just say it so you don't waste people's time. Regardless, shit happens, and I understand that the LE industry has particular challenges.

  • CableChief said: Do other providers in this area feel the same way?

    Review everything and then review it again. People are getting more and more creative at perpetrating fraud.

    Automated fraud protection is very simple to evade, take the time to examine the orders by hand and if you're in any doubt over the veracity of an order then rejected it. The cost of dealing with the clean-up of a fraudulent customer or a customer who misuses your services is higher than the loss of income.

  • david_Wdavid_W Member
    edited April 2016

    Here is the things I always follow while trying to order any "must resist deals" for production. If anything went wrong, I will just let it sit there until expiration. Anyone has better idea to verify a LET services?

    • Provider reputation check
    • Read through ToS and AUP
    • Place order
    • Configuration and verify HW, Network
    • Setup monitoring and watch it for a month
    • Make a DRP for this service (what should I do if this services disappear tomorrow?)
    • Move some data in and setup off-site backup
      *GO LIVE!!
  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    david_W said: Here is the things I always follow while trying to order any "must resist deals" for production. If anything went wrong, I will just let it sit there until expiration. Anyone has better idea to verify a LET services?

    Although your post is a bit off topic:

    • Have them or they parent company been around for some years already?
    • Are they running their own network instead of using someone's else? If no, do they at least own their IP addresses and other resources?
    • Do they do forbid a lot of reasonable but resource intensive services in their ToS?
    • Are LET or similar places one of their primary customer sources?

    If they pass those 4, chances are they want to be here for the long term and have a decent business plan.

    Thanked by 1david_W
  • I'm yet to experience such a high number of fraudulent transactions. Of course we've all had them before but maxmind and 2co seem to block out 99% of them.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited April 2016

    Ole_Juul said: I suggest that others make their demands clear as well. Perhaps even list right up front what measures you're using.

    It's really hard to do that for fraud. It's basically publishing "Find a loophole within this criteria to pass through our system." You want to know the things fraudsters do, and you don't want them to know that you know. That's kind of how fraud prevention works. Staying a step ahead of them is something that changes daily, and it's an uphill battle.

    Today fraud watch may be "minfraud score of 90" and tomorrow it may be "This one particular subnet in Russia between these hours of the day." No single filter works every day.

    Now on the other side of that, if there's a list of things that you can openly tell people not to do to not get caught by the fraud filter, that (to me) means that the filter is broken. You're basically making those filters worthless by telling customers how to avoid them, so you really don't need those filters. Just my 2c.

    Thanked by 1Ole_Juul
  • blackblack Member

    Are these fraud orders coming from VPN / Proxy IPs? If so, I offer a free service called getIPIntel that lets you look up potentially bad IPs.

  • @Nyr said:
    I understand that fraud needs to deal with. I think everyone understands also that there are also false positives, even with a human checking manually. Nobody is perfect.

    Definitely - but I have to say that automatic setups aren't necessarily such a bad thing. Sure, the occasional order that we don't want slips through - but if there's any doubt in that it COULD be a legit order, then suspending rather than terminating whilst we do manual verification has never annoyed anyone (that they've told us, anyway). Customers in general seem to understand it when they're told why we're doing it.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    MightWeb said: Customers in general seem to understand it when they're told why we're doing it.

    This applies to nearly all aspects :) Good communication is the key.

  • MightWebMightWeb Member
    edited April 2016

    @Nyr said:
    This applies to nearly all aspects :) Good communication is the key.

    Quoted for truth! Yeah - no, all I'm saying is that whilst I get the manual setup thing, I don't see it as a necessary thing. Then again, I'm far from versed in the LET industry - so I might be talking out of my arse here ;)

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    The only services we manually setup are KVMs because of the amount of abuse they attract. I would say less than 20% of our KVM orders actually get processed while the rest get refunded. Our OpenVZ services are automatically provisioned because we have enough systems in place to stop abuse before it gets out of hand before we have a chance to manually review the orders.

  • XIAOSpider97XIAOSpider97 Member
    edited April 2016

    My ex-partner suggested me to do automatic setup but I declined. So we manually check all orders.

    "I cannot bear 'PENDING', even just 15 minutes!" -- My ex-partner...

    Still doing manual checking now. The WHMCS SolusVM plugin can do most things, you just need to click "Accept order".

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