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What is wrong with people these days, insight from a host perspective
AnthonySmith
Member, Patron Provider
Hi Folks,
Some events happened today which were rather frustrating and I suppose it is a reflection on human nature to some degree, I thought I would share this with the general user base here as an insight in to the day in the life of a host.
As some of you may be aware I started up a project to give people access to cheap resources with the €3.00 p/year VPS services at lowendspirit.com this is ran at a loss and as a personal project, the revenue from this service does not now and never will cover the expenses and I try to make that clear when ever it is posted as an offer so people understand what they are getting.
I opened up a bit more stock today and specifically requested when I posted the offer here that people do not post the direct sign up link anywhere, I want them to buy it via the site so they fully understand what it is they are getting, sadly someone decided to ignore that and posted the link on http://www.hostloc.com which seems to be some sort of hosting forum for China with an affiliate link.
I requested that they take down the direct link and decided to ignore the fact they activated an affiliate link which skims even more revenue off the bottom line for this sponsored project then on further investigation I find that this person as signed up for a number of them using different accounts to try and get the price even lower I assume by getting 15% back per affiliate sign up.
So once I tied together all the accounts by IP, phone number etc I suspended the VPS's asking for communication and to validate who they actually are, within literally 10 minutes I get 2 notices of paypal disputes and 6 minutes after that 2 charge back notifications (for €3) so as a result of this I will no doubt be banged for a further $50 - $100 in charge back fee's the charge backs came through as I was closing the many accounts that were obviously fakes and with the full intention of just giving a refund as the disputes showed it was pointless trying to work with this person.
So in short a not for profit service was exploited to try and pay even less for it, followed by 2 charge backs within minutes because I tried to get things in order which will put the costs up even more.
Perhaps it is just because I am getting old that I rant more these days but that just seems like a scum of the earth move to me, this is not the first incident I have had like this and I am sure it will not be the last but it seems like people actually genuinely want to hurt hosts these days and get a real kick out of it without any consideration for anyone else and at the same time could not be less interested in paying attention to any rules or regulation.
The upshot is that the next location is now not going ahead this week, the person in question I am 99.9% sure is a member of this forum too which makes it even harder to swallow, seems like I need to come up with a new system for allowing orders for this service to safe guard myself, I was considering just not allowing any orders from China at all but that really does not seem fair on people or perhaps only allowing orders for this product for members that PM me here and have been a member for more than 3 months with 20+ posts.
Anyway I seem to have created a wall of text so I will finish typing in a second, the message is please don't consider hosts to be targets to exploit, most of us are in this business with the right attitude you don't stand outside local shops shouting about how bad they are when something does not go your way to damage them, a little respect goes a long way.
/me runs off to play the worlds smallest violin.
Comments
Let's beat him up! (aka disable him)
/joke
But hey, there are always fucked up people like this
I feel for you, had similiar experiences with free loaders. I am sure you will win a charge back dispute.
Considering some of the individuals on this forum this isn't too surprising
I really hate that kind of people... Months ago I sold a service for 30USD, then he placed a paypal dispute.
Paypal dispute is not a problem, you can win it. The chargeback is a problem though. I am wondering how they could request a charge back so fast, i thought paperwork (and hence time) is required for this.
It is just annoying, and it is the reason people don't like to do things to help people out because so many will just take the piss and exploit you.
I wont let it stop me obviously but it will slow down the roll out of this service.
@rds100 indeed I have never seen anything like it, 16:06 notification of dispute, 16:12 We're investigating a payment reversal.
I can only assume because I dared to ask what he was doing he stamped his feet, threw a hissy fit and rang his card issuer to say his details have been stolen, I cannot think of any other way to get such a fast response.
I wonder if you could check HTTP referrer and redirect to the website if the visitor isn't already coming from there.
Brilliant idea, I will look in to that.
Thanks @rm_
Were the payments from the same paypal account or from different accounts? I wonder if one can use the same card with multiple paypal accounts (shouldn't be able to do this i hope).
You could have manual activation and ask the client to write a few sentences about what (s)he's going to use the VPS for (multiple accounts will most likely be easily recognizable).
There are bad apples everywhere. Among hosts, among clients... I can imagine how frustrating this can be to you, especially because (from your previous writings) you seems to be more sensitive regarding those mattes (but hey, who enjoy to be scammed anyway..) however does all this really surprise you? After all this time in this business? On the contrary I am not surprised anymore when I see hundreds clients here and there f***ed up with some host... (but this doesn't mean that I don't feel for you - it's always sux to be scammed).
For what? To "crucify" some "nick" on some third party non affiliated forum because "someone" said "something" about things non directly related to forum? @AnthonySmith is well respected member here and many of us enjoy in service he offer hower he's still just a member here. "Our" IPs we use on public forum should not be connected with anyones private (third party) business.
This is part of the reason I will never, EVER, become a host. The risk involved for such a small amount of gain is not worth the price if something like happens, IMO.
I feel for you, @AnthonySmith, when you try to do something nice for people and take advantage of you. Then kick you while they have you down. I have been there many times in my life. It is not a good feeling at all and I, for one, would not blame you one bit for discontinuing this project because of things like this.
I know you do not want some "bad apples" to spoil for it everyone but if you continue to take hits it is going to effect everything you do sooner or later. Still I understand the motives behind this project and I support them and what, and the other hosts here do.
I do not have an answer as to how to protect yourself better. The idea of pming you could work but could also get confusing I think. The simple fact of the matter is people do not listen and they never seem to want to follow any kind of rules. No matter who is the one setting the guidelines anymore.
Yeah I am not interested in making a hate thread for that person, that would be almost as bad as what they have done to me.
You are right @Spirit perhaps I am more sensitive, I tend to give people too much credit without them needing to earn it first so it burns when crap like this happens when I am genuinely trying to do a good thing.
@AnthonySmith do not worry.you are not only one who facing it.I have also faced it with my promo offer.But I refund them first,then close the account
If you're talking about credit card chargebacks, I don't think they require paperwork. I've been able to call my bank and have them issue a chargeback for X transaction and the money shows back up in my account within a day.
If I claim fraud on the other hand, they have me fill out paperwork and start an investigation.
PM or ticket can be partial solution however it would mean more work for @AnthonySmith on regular basis which beat the purpose of this really low end offer. Problematic situation. Maybe time consumption can be reduced with accounts activation in bulk every few days (and this stated on site and forum) however with spoiled community used of instant activation I am not sure how good this would go as well.
I might just leave it as it is and stop allowing paypal as an option for it, it will not resolve the issue but out of all gateways paypal are the worst by far for things like this.
Doesn't this bring another complications? Existing good standing customers, etc? Also aren't direct CC chargebacks more painful than paypal disputes?
Or maybe just manual orders after reviewing them?
@AnthonySmith
Maybe you use your forums to validate users in some way?
Yeah I was thinking more along the lines of only allowing moneybookers and amazon, google checkout etc, or maybe bringing 2co in to the mix, just thoughts right now...
@anthonysmith sorry to hear that. sidepoint: is there anyway to disable the affiliate link for specific products? or perhaps just setup a manual redirect if that prod id and an aff. code is present (not sure if that will break anything).
yes he should do that.That is easy if he is using whmcs
Let's just sue him
That makes it near impossible/infeasible to pay for anyone that is not in the US and doesn't have a credit card.
It's the "tragedy of the commons" and is just human nature. Although the criteria you've posted would exclude me, hopefully you'd have an exception for existing (good) customers.
On that note you could implement a system where customers can only buy using a referral code from an existing customer (every new customer gets one 7 days after sign up, say). The upshot being if you post your referral to a public forum and it is abused it gets cancelled and your account is cancelled. Good customers though can keep handing out their referrals to friends and associates.
Also chose the payment system that gives you the lowest chance of chargeback, but please not PayPal alone!
Who doesn't have a credit or debit card?
And then do what? In the Netherlands the only way to pay with a bank card (via Moneybookers) is through iDeal, a system that's set up by the banks here. Countries that do not have such a system, are shit out of luck. It's not just a matter of entering your card details, like with a credit card.
Huh? Are you serious? Do you expect him to travel to china with his lawyer to sue someone for 100$? In this crappy situation it's not possible to do much so lets concentrate rather to potential realistic solutions to prevent (or atleast reduce) those things in future.