BorlandTalk.com

Paulo França · Guest

What are you doing to protect yourself?

Recently I've been receiving several orders from weird
users/emails. I am not going to enumerated them here as I'm
not sure those orders are fraudulent, but I just changed my
policies against fraud and made it public at my web site.

I have contacted such buyers (that seem to be the same person
with different names, real residencial addresses - probably taken
from the web - and weird email addresses (from @aol.com), always
trying to purchase the source code (U$ 500.oo) without even being
a known user first. They (or he) never respond to my questions.

My policies are now very drastic. For those who would like to see
it, please tell me what you think:

In English:
http://athrasoft.com/en/Order.htm#Frauds

In Portuguese:
http://athrasoft.com/po/Order.htm#Frauds

Maybe you vendors like me help me enhance my policies.
Thanks in advance.

--
Regards,
Paulo França
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http://www.athrasoft.com/en (english)
http://www.athrasoft.com/po (portuguese)

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Matt Harward · Guest

I use a 2-step registration process (I don't have any source licenses,
although the concepts would still work).

My software starts off with a trial license that has limited
functionality or a time restriction. When the user purchases a license
they get a new license code that unlocks all the functionality... but
expires after a set time period, usually 7 or 14 days. At the end of
that time frame the license reverts back to the trial license if I don't
send them a full license.

In the meantime, I have the time to check whether they are a legitimate
user and make sure the credit card isn't going to come back fraudulent.
If it does they never get the fully unlocked license code. In fact,
at that point they can post it on warez sites, give it away... whatever.
It's nothing more than a trial version after 7 days.

If the card processes and doesn't come back fraudulent I simply send out
an unlimited code before the temporary one expires. If this sounds like
a hassle, it's really not. It works very well for me. In your case,
you might want to consider doing something similar with the source...
binaries on purchase, source when everything is confirmed.

Here's the scenario I want to avoid... and a *ton* of software
publishers make this mistake... I never want to punish my legitimate
users (or frustrate them) because I'm paranoid about the small
percentage of people that are willing to lie, cheat and steal to take
advantage of me. I do enough to be proactive, not enough to be
obsessive. But I always focus on positive revenue growth and *not*
negative revenue loss. IMO, you'll be far more successful focusing on
the paying customers than worrying about the crooks.

Btw, as I just commented in another thread, I use Software Passport to
manage my trial/temporary/final keys and security. It works well so
far, and I don't have to worry a whole lot about who's buying from me
except for the transaction costs (but I'm paying those regardless, so
not much sense worrying about it).

Anyway, don't go so far as to alienate real buyers. There's not much
more frustrating to me as a user than buying a digital product that I
can't get immediate access to. There is a prominent Delphi component
vendor that does this and it drives me absolutely *batty*. I've
literally purchased competing products because I'm impulsive and don't
want to wait 48 hours to get my stuff... even if it would be worth the
wait (but maybe that's just me).

My 2c.

Matt Harward

Paulo França wrote:

Paulo França · Guest

Matt Harward <mharward (AT) phatrock (DOT) com> wrote: