Please stop!

[Mac Howard]

I ask admin to allow this post for a few days. If you read down you will see why.

I'm not accusing anyone on this site of being responsible for the behaviour described below, I have no idea where it's coming from - I'm posting this on every site relevant to text sims in the hope that it will be read by the people responsible and that they will respond favourably.

I've just had to close down the SaaP Online order system and removed the downloadable copy of SaaP. Over the last week orders have been put through again and again using false credit card numbers. These are clearly being generated by a number generator (several attempts to order being aborted before a successful number is found).

These guys presumably justify their behaviour in believing that they are merely taking a game they wouldn't buy anyway. But that is not the case. Not only do the cc authorities still take their percentage of the purchase price but the bank then charges 25 dollars when they eventually learn it's a bad card and have to take action. So, the purchase price is removed from my account, the processing fee still charged and a $25 bad card fee imposed.

Each false order costs me $26!

In the last week there have been 4 false orders for every good one. That adds up to every order costing me $87.

SaaP is not published by a large company that can pass losses like this on to some other aspect of the business, it is written and published by myself alone. These losses come out of my own personal bank account. I cannot possibly stand these losses for any length of time. They will quickly bankrupt me.

Please stop! Your actions will merely mean that I remove the game that is available for download after ordering and yet another service to users will disappear - yet another benefit of the Internet will be destroyed as a result of your actions.

That you should do this to one of the few companies that has passed on the cost savings of Internet distribution to customers with a $15 price tag is gut-wrenching!

I repeat, the downloadable game has been removed and the order site taken down. So, please, no more.

[Sloan]

Wow I hope you somehow catch whoever is doing this to you. That is rediculous that you get charged because the credit card software can't detect that a card is bad until it is too late.

[JeeberD]

People are such idiots. Sorry to hear that you're getting screwed over Mac...

[albionmoonlight]

The laws sure seem to be slanted to hurt small business owners.

Good luck resolving this issue, MH.

[GoSeahawks]

What is Sick as a Parrot smg?

[Sloan]

Originally Posted by GoSeahawks

What is Sick as a Parrot smg?

A soccer text sim: http://www.users.bigpond.com/machoward/

[daedalus]

That's sad to hear. Hopefully, this will blow over soon, Mac. Good luck.

[yabanci]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

The laws sure seem to be slanted to hurt small business owners.

To the contrary, I would say slanted in favor of large credit card companies and other financial institutions who profit off this kind of thing. It's too bad these things happen.

[FBPro]

Mac, good luck w/ this hope somehow you can catch the morons and rake them over the coals.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Jeez, and I was just about to buck up and buy this game. I suppose it'll have to wait now.

[Mac Howard]

You make me feel so much better, Pumpy Tudors . I'll be putting the site back up in a couple of days - I'm currently monitoring hits on a substitute page.

Thanks guys for the sympathy (I'll be sendind round a collection box ). The admin of the secure site have been monitoring the footprint of hits for a couple of days and are passing the information on to appropriate authorities but I'm not sure how much that will bring.

Incidentally, skydog, I tried to edit the title and put (soccer) behind the "Please stop!" so that the gridiron guys are not drawn into this thread. But it doesn't seem to have taken - whenever I try to edit the first post again it's in the title there but doesn't come out in the thread list for some reason.

[Eaglesfan27]

I hope you catch these guy(s) and they get what they deserve. It is sad that someone would try to steal a game like this and hurt your business in the process.

[tucker342]

Wow, that sucks.

Hopefully you'll somehow be able to catch whoever is doing it, or if you're not able to catch them, I hope they stop.

[Solecismic]

This is a huge concern of mine, which is why I used AVS with my own card processing, and actually convinced ViaTech to use it as well, as they ran into a wave of this b.s. last year.

I don't know if it can solve the problem completely, but it helps. At the minimum, you should have a talk with other banks about this. That $25 fee sounds absurd. AVS is Address Verification Service, and I don't know if it works in all countries (you might end up using a system that simply bans cards with numbers leading to the Carribbean, where card fraud is rampant).

[Mac Howard]

I'll ask about the AVS system, Jim, but I have spoken to the admin of the secure site and they have implemented a number of improvements - not the first time they've met this, of course - and haven't mentioned this.

They have mentioned the CVV number - the number on the back of cc these days - but I'm not sure this is any more secure than the cc number. I don't know what it's based on, I suppose it must be linked to the cc number, and suspect that these number generators will be just as capable of generating acceptable numbers. Do you know anything about them?

I'm assuming at the moment that they're (probably college kids) after the game that is available after ordering. I suspect they've hacked into the time limiting system and can turn it into a fully working game - otherwise they'd be better off with the freely available demo. That's why I posted this message on a number of sites because I think these kids think they're merely getting a game for free and not costing anyone money.

If this is so it may be just a case of removing the option of users downloading the game immediately after ordering but that will mean removing an option that customers like. But if it fixes the problem then so be it.

It has been suggested that it may be a commercial interference. This would possibly mean a restricted number of IP addresses and we're monitoring that and black-listing those of the fraudulent orders. But I really do hope it isn't this. I've had problems like this before and it really is unpleasant.

[Shepp]

Mac,
I hope you've cantacted the Police about this situation. I'm sure eveyone knows what a huge problem crdit fraud is. If you report this to the authorities and they are savvy enough they may be able to track these people by tracing the IP that they are using. It may be a pain and a long shot but you may get these folks locked up.