Favorite {fvrit} Blog

More StumbleUpon Woes July 1, 2008

Allen Harkleroad — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:02:31 GMT

On Monday StumbleUpon many users experienced a problem with stumbling and accessing their own SU page. Users may have seen a message that they have been locked out due to "Maximum Password Attempts".

Stumblers could not log in, nor could they access the help forum to contact the StumbleUpon staff.

The StumbleUpon engineers had rolled out a security update sometime Sunday evening or Monday morning that caused the issue.

The issue seems to have been fixed as of 2:14am on July 2nd.

"Update: the guys have made some changes to the machinery.

Please try clearing cookies (for "http://www.stumbleupon.com" - restart your browser - and try again. Should be OK now, but please let us know if you have further problems. We'll be here... (and watching Feedback, etc).

Please pass the word if you are in contact with other members who have been affected by this problem."

Being that I develop Internet applications I have much sympathy for the StumbleUpon staff and engineers. Many times we have found a show-stopper bug after deploying an application or update. It happens to all developers, it is akin to a Murphy's Law thing.

The folks at StumbleUpon fixed the issue quickly and I applaud them for their hard work and the ability to work under stress. With 5 million StumbleUpon users, I can see where an feature ends up being a bug that affects many.

Great work fixing it guys!

StumbleUpon Meltdown This Weekend

Allen Harkleroad — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:41:18 GMT

Since around June 27th or 28th StumbleUpon has several issues, ranging from slow stumble interface load-times, the inability to send items or messages to friends and Stumbles not showing up. Also many users are seeing error messages about invalid authentication, cookies and computer clocks being too fast.

It appears that an update caused much of the issues and several suggestions have been made to get rid of the issues.

I love StumbleUpon and am glad they have a staff that stay on top of things, such as fixes. In the SU help forum several Stumblers and SU staff have posted suggestions on fixing the issues.

Here are several suggested fixes:

1) Clear your browser cookies and cache, then sign out and sign back in.

2) Uninstall your current toolbar and install the latest beta of the toolbar.

3) Use CCleaner

4) disable or update the NoScript add-in, if you have it installed.

I hope this helps my fellow Stumblers that might be aware of the issues over the weekend.

The SU engineers say the fixes are in, but some users may still be having issues.

If Microsoft Were Based In Georgia

Allen Harkleroad — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:34:20 GMT

Their #1 product would be Microsoft Winders.

Instead of an hourglass icon you'd get an empty beer bottle.

Occasionally you'd bring up a window that was covered with a Hefty bag.

Dialog boxes would give you the choice of "Aw-right" or "Naw".

Instead of "Ta-Da", the opening sound would be Dueling Banjos.

The "Recycle Bin" in Winders would be an outhouse.

Whenever you pulled up the Sound Player you'd hear a digitized drunk redneck yelling "Freebird!"

Instead of "Start Me Up", the Winders theme song would be "Achy Breaky Heart".

PowerPoint would be named "ParPawnt".

Microsoft's programming tools would be "Vishul Basic" and "Vishul C++".

The Winders logo would incorporate the Confederate Flag.

Microsoft Word would be just that: one word.

New Shutdown sound: "Y'all come back now!"

Instead of VP, Microsoft big shots would be called "Cuz".

Hardware could be repaired using parts from an old Trans Am.

Microsoft Office replaced with Micr'sawft Henhouse.

Four words: Daisy Duke Screen Saver.

Well, the first thing you know, old Bill's a billionaire.

Spreadsheet software would include examples to inventory dead cars in your front yard.

Flight Simulator replaced by Tractor Pull Simulator.

Microsoft CEO: Bubba Gates.

Instead of computer golf, the game of choice would be:

a. Interactive WWF Rasslin' (That's wrestling for you culturally deprived types).

b. Beer bottle toss at roadsigns.

c. Mud Boggin'.

d. 'Bacca spittin' at insects.

Instead of MS "virus scan", it would be MS "Cootie Rinse".

Solitaire would offer choice of "number of players".

Icon for mail trashcan would be shaped like a Dumpster.

All shapes in Tetris would be same-sized squares.

More Technology Humor

Thank You for Your E-mail

Microsoft Tech Support - Humor

Employer Speak (Definitions)

Want a good laugh? Visit FunMeme

Spotting a Craig's List Scammer

Allen Harkleroad — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:54:01 GMT

I hate scammers. Especially Craig's List scammers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to catch one trying to scam someone.

I recently bought a used G4 MacBook to replace on older G4 tower Mac (bad power supply, but that's another story). In any case I have a 5 month old Dell XPS M1730 17" laptop that I have no use for as the MacBook serves well as a notebook and as a desktop computer when connected to my Apple Cinema display, keyboard and mouse.

Back to the story. I post my ad on Craig's list. And it clearly states "CASH ONLY. Must pick up in person, no exceptions. Any emails requesting other forms of payment or shipping will not be responded to. I work and live in Statesboro Georgia, so you will have to come here to see the laptop."

Someone contacts me this morning, states they want the laptop, but then attempts to take control and tell ME how they will pay and how it will be shipped, even though I clearly state that it is cash only and that the laptop must be picked up in person.

This is a classic ruse used by scammers to dupe unsuspecting sellers. Western Union is especially a No-No when selling on Craig's List.

From the email I received from llbts7@aol.com

"Thanks for swift response i am highly interested in the item but i want to pay through two(2)mode of payment the first one is via western union money transfer if u are ready for that get back with the details of how i can send it to you and the second one is via paypal and if interested in that kindly get back with email payapl account for fast payment and i am sending the item international for my business agent and i will adding $150 for shipping cost thanks hope to hear from you soon."

These scamming idiots use the same ploy nearly every time. I have posted probably 40 ads on Craig's list and on every single ad I get one or more scamming morons trying to steal from me.

Craig's List is an awesome way to sell items without having to pay a fee (as opposed to eBay fees). You just need to be ever vigilant and NEVER allow a potential buyer to set the terms of the sale. Anyone that tries to tell you they will pay via Western Union, etc. and you must ship it, etc., that they will pay extra for shipping, etc.

Delete the email and forget about it. It is a SCAM.

I have also ran into several scammy sellers on Craig's List. They will post an ad in a major city list on Craig's List, when you respond they will make an excuse of being out of town or out of the country visiting family (or something similar), then they will tell you they have the product with iSold or some other outfit and they will ship it to you. BEWARE of this, 99.999% of the time the seller is a scammer and the scam ads will generally involve high priced computers or electronics.

Hopefully AOL will do something about this scammer. I did report them to abuse@aol.com (who knows maybe they will cut him off from the Internet).

Has anyone tried scamming you on Craig's List? If so how did you figure it out or how did you catch them?

Yahoo Buzz Could Be a Digg Killer, But...

Allen Harkleroad — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:40:49 GMT

Yahoo Buzz, is definitely interesting. However with that said it isn't much to it in regards to social media or social news. Sure, you can "buzz up" or "buzz down" (vote up or down) an item as a registered user.

The problem is though, that is where the social part stops. Yahoo Buzz is still basically a one way communication with the users. There isn't much in the way of two-way communication or participation happening.

Until Yahoo opens up Buzz more and allow more user participation it is destined to be yet another news site with a couple of bells and whistles.

I do honestly believe that if Yahoo were to allow submissions by users (the public) it could stir more interest and more traffic and more return visits.

Currently Yahoo Buzz, isn't much different than the regular Yahoo news or Google news, so why would anyone break their normal surfing routine to see the same content on a different area of Yahoo? I don't see it happening, at least by any noticeable means.

Even Google news will pull news from sources other than big media. I know as my Designer Today news gets pulled every few minutes by Google news (kind of makes me wonder when Google news will become a full-blown social news destination). Bet you won't see the Designer Today news items being included in Yahoo Buzz. It's not my fault that Yahoo or Yahoo Buzz doesn't include it. It's because Yahoo is so closed. Nothing more, nothing less.

Locking submissions to only certain high profile sites, is nothing more than a proverbial circle-jerk between news destination giants and news media portals. It's pretty much an elitist alpha male mentality happening on Yahoo Buzz.

One thing that Mixx, Digg, Reddit and Newsvine and the other variations of these sites has working to their advantage is that all of them encourage visitor participation beyond voting news items up or down. Everyone can participate (submissions, comment and voting), and that is ultimately a good thing.

Social media and networking is about two way communication and participation. Yahoo, seems to have the air of traditional TV and print, that being a top down, one way form of communication. Users want to be part of something (hence why social networking is so popular). As humans it is in our genes to be sociable.

I personally don't care a whole lot about the ability to comment on items unless it is something I am *very* interested in or that I have a strong opinion about, but it would open up the communication barrier if *all* users could submit news items.

I bet if you were to take Yahoo Buzz and make it completely separate it from the Yahoo portal (a standalone destination and a non Yahoo URL), it would sink like the Titanic.

All you have to do is take a quick look at Mixx, Reddit, Digg and Newsvine traffic to see that indeed more involved user participation does work.

Just think for a moment. How many times have you seen something about Yahoo Buzz in social media since it was launched to the public? There doesn't seem to be much "buzz" about Yahoo Buzz.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the more involved a user is the more traffic and return visits a site will have. Merely voting up or down and article isn't going to cut it in social media or social news.

What's your opinion of Yahoo! Buzz?

22 Signs You are using Microsoft Windows Vista

Allen Harkleroad — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:40:44 GMT

You restart Internet Explorer more often than you click your mouse buttons

You can't watch a video because Media Player freezes up... Every time

User Access Control (UAC) pops up so much that you can do anything productive. At all.

You can only find one lousy Vista theme, even though you bought Vista Ultimate

File copying and network transfers take so long, it would have been quicker to load Linux on your laptop (from scratch) and copy the files to a flash drive and walk down to the server room and copy them onto the file server.

Popup balloons appears for every $*#@ing thing, and you can't click anything you are working because the focus always changes to them.

Windows update insists on rebooting your computer whether or not you are in the middle of creating an important document.

Dialog boxes blank out if you have email, Internet Explorer and one other application open.

You gave up trying to install a network printer

You have to delete or copy off 90% of what you had on C drive to install Vista, which required you to restart the Vista setup 8 times to remove enough files.

Half of your peripheral devices do not work as there are no Vista drivers

You begin to dream about buying a new Mac because they Just Work

You fantasize about moving your fortune 500 company over to Linux or Macintosh because everyone wasting so many man hours trying to figure how to actually use Vista

Application window sizes never remember your preferences, you set them to open full screen and they insist on open in tiny windows that even flies have a hard time seeing the content of.

You lose internet connectivity 15 or more times a day because Vista thinks you are on a restricted network.

All applications run 75% slower than they did on any previous version of Windows.

You feel the urge to toss your PC through the window more than 5 times a day.

More than half of the applications you use every day just go Poof, you reboot 30 times a day and they still go Poof

You begin to actually believe the email you received stating that Microsoft employed a room full of monkeys typing on typewriters to write the source code for Vista.

Unbuntu Linux is suddenly seems like a good idea for your workstation

You wonder why Microsoft released those animated Dream Scene desktop backgrounds that only support a couple of resolutions, which pisses you off after having shelled out so much money for the Ultimate version of Vista

You start feeling like a dumbass for believing all the Vista hype, even when your geek friends told you to stay away from Vista.

Do you have a Windows Vista annoyance? Post it in the comments.

Sprint Nextel Screwing Over US Soldiers?

Allen Harkleroad — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:14:25 GMT

Over at the consumerist there is a story running on how Sprint screwed over a US soldier (I am sure it is not an isolated case either) .

"Sprint thanked Ryan for his tour with the Navy by charging him $0.75 per minute for airtime, resulting in a $500 bill. When Ryan complained, Sprint's customer service representatives called him irresponsible, and gently explained that they couldn't care less about his problem." - read the full story

After all Sprint screws customer on a daily basis including me (got me for over $50,000.00). Read my story and the open letter I wrote to Dan Hesse the Chairman and CEO of Sprint Nextel.

What's next Sprint? Are you going to screw over NASCAR fans too? Doh, I imagine you are already doing that. I bet you give folks who complain loud enough your heavily discounted Sprint Employee Referral plan (SERO).

I guess GREED is the driving factor at Sprint, not the customer.

Update May 25th, 2008 - I did some "Googling" and it appears that Sprint outsources it's call centers (ie: customer service) to a company called Alorica www.alorica.com. I imagine such things as this issue are caused when companies outsource one of the most important aspects (customer relations, support and service) to outside companies.

New Funny Alltel TV Commercial in the Works?

Allen Harkleroad — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:05:50 GMT

All Five Mobile Phone Companies on Sprint Really Sucks - Does This Mean Alltel Will Run a New TV Commercial This Weekend?

Someone be sure to say hello to Chad for me!

Here's some Sprint Jokes for you...

I also heard (rumor) Sprint is cutting costs (due to their stock being rated as junk). All Sprint employees who work overtime have the option of choosing more minutes on their Sprint mobile phone or Sprint stock, seems most of them are opting for the extra minutes for some reason. Also rumored that Sprint executives are now using Sprint stock for toilet paper.

How many Sprint executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None, they are still busy trying to find their way out of a wet paper sack.

Why did the Sprint customer cross the road?
To get the heck away from Sprint nickel and diming them to death.

What do you call the next iPhone killer?
Anything but Sprint's Samsung Instinct (SCH-M800).

How do you recognize a Sprint employee when you see someone?
HINT: Look for the ankle monitor on their leg.

What makes a sound like SSSsssssssssssssssssssssssssttttthhhhoooooppppp?
Sprint Nextel's stock tanking today. (NYSE ticker: S)

How easy is it to get Sprint customer support?
We don't know the Sprint customer service reps get angry and hang up on us.

How can you tell a Sprint sales representative is lying to you?
Their lips are moving.

PS: the dan@sprint.com email address is an auto-responder, no one reads them. It is a stupid marketing trick to make customers think they can actually tell someone at Sprint something. If you email them you will get a form letter (boilerplate) response. No real humans here folks, if you sent email to dan@sprint.com then you are as gullible as they come.

Just heard a rumor about a new Sprint promotion. You get (FREE) 550 shares of Sprint stock with every two year (nickel and dime you in fees) contract you sign.

Read the full story of how Sprint screwed me for over $50,000.00

See also ValleyWag Sprint Customer Goes Biblical over Charges

Sprint Nextel Stock Cut to Junk Status

Allen Harkleroad — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:35:22 GMT

"Fitch currently rates both Sprint Nextel's issued default and senior unsecured ratings at "BB+," which is considered junk status.

Fitch said it considered past deterioration in credit metrics, consumer sentiment and Sprint Nextel's competition when deciding to affirm the rating. Sprint Nextel's first-quarter operating performance met lowered expectations as well, Fitch said in a statement." - CNN Money

Business Wire Press Release

Sprint Nextel NYSE stock ticker: S

Sprint Gouges Small Business for over $50,000.00

Open Letter to Dan Hesse and Sprint Nextel Board of Directors

Allen Harkleroad — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:16:06 GMT

May 22, 2008

Mr. Dan Hesse, Sprint Board of Directors, et al.

As you may be aware, I recently had discovered that I had overpaid Sprint for dedicated Internet access (DS3 access). I gave your company many opportunities from 2004 to 2008 to rectify the price charged. Each time I asked about the rate, I was advised by your sales representatives that the price had gone up, and that I would have to pay more should I sign another agreement with Sprint. I finally recorded a telephone conversation with Mr. Ron Schober and caught him lying to me.

You see I am an honest man that runs an honest business. Two months ago, Amazon.com overpaid me $9,800.00 for monthly sales on two of my books. Rather than not say anything and just keep the money (kind of what Sprint has done with the overpayments from me) I contacted Amazon.com and inquired about it. It was indeed a mistake and I sent Amazon a check for what they overpaid me. I have ethics and morals. I would not even consider taking money that I did not earn. I can sleep at night and do not stress about my business because I don’t take advantage of customers to make a buck. I don’t have to worry about what goes around coming back around to me, as I do not deliberately do wrong. I am not saying that you or Sprint deliberately do wrong, but as they say: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck.

I have had many correspondences with former Sprint business customers that also discovered that Sprint had been overcharging them for services. I see quite a pattern of mis-billing, gouging, lying sales representatives, etc.

One person advised me it took two years to finally convince Sprint to pay the $12,000.00 that was overpaid to your company. It appears that I am not the lone complainer regarding being “gouged” by Sprint. It does appear though, that I am the only person to become so vocal about being overcharged.

From my point of view, Sprint comes across as arrogant and doesn’t seem to care too much for its reputation or its customers. You lost over a million mobile users and continue to operate with a “so what” attitude. It is almost as if Sprint is trying to shed itself of mobile phone users and divest itself of consumer revenues. Is Sprint moving towards being only an infrastructure provider? It seems to me to be the case. Even then with your poor customer service you won’t have many infrastructure customers either.

Sprint customer service is abysmal. Since this issue between myself and Sprint began I have been researching complaints. The number of angry and dissatisfied customers and employees is staggering. Maybe up in your glass tower your have been insulated from the real problems at Sprint. I do not know but I can assure you that if Sprint continues on the path you have chosen Sprint is doomed to failure.

I really dislike having to erect sucks.com websites and I only do so when all reasonable efforts fail with a company. To date I have had only one company refuse to do anything after I erected a sucks.com, with that being said that company and its board of directors are involved in a class-action fraud lawsuit, so I imagine they have more important things to worry about at the moment.

Sprint needs to get back to basics. I am referring to customer service and support. Sprint fails miserably with customer concerns and problems. Without customers you have no revenues (think about that for a moment). Ignore the customers long enough and you won’t have to worry about how to turn the company around as there will be no company. If you want Sprint to succeed I suggest that you take care of what puts money in your pocket. Customer care should not be a cost line item in your accounting system.

With that being said, you and Sprint should do the right thing and refund what I overpaid your company. I am not going to throw a bunch of threats around, however every visitor to Sprint-Really-Sucks.com is potentially one less customer for your company and I imagine many will tells others, who will in turn tell others, so on and so forth. The dislike for Sprint will grow geometrically and eventually hit critical mass.

If Sprint had addressed my issue immediately this whole “Sprint Really Sucks” could have been an opportunity to show your customers that you do care, would have gone a long way in terms of goodwill, and would have perhaps bumped you up a bit in overall customer satisfaction. If customers feel that a company cares and will attempt to help them with their issue they are more likely to hang around long-term. Unfortunately it seems that Sprint doesn’t care about customers they way they should be. If Sprint had there would not be a mass migration away from Sprint to other telecommunications companies.

I can only hope that you or someone on the Sprint board of directors see that the Sprint needs a complete overhaul of its customer support and get back to basics (the customers).

Even business customer support is failing. When I pulled the plug on my Sprint data circuits in April of this year it took three full days before Sprint called to see if there was a problem, in years past I could pull a circuit offline and within 30 minutes Sprint would call to see if there was a problem. Big difference it seems between then and now.

Building a new WiFi network isn’t the cure-all for Sprint. If you don’t have any customers to use it how are you going to profit off of such a venture? I guess you could shed all of your consumers and rent the WiFi out to other companies. Why not let them make all the money, right?

It is sad to see that Sprint has fallen on such hard times, however Sprint employees and polices caused that. You only have yourself to blame for that one. I used to be a happy customer and I used to tell people about Sprint services. I guess you can imagine I stopped doing that a while ago. I imagine a majority of your former customers feel the same way.

There is a well-known saying that a happy customer at most tells a couple of people, but an angry customer will tell the world, or at least anyone that will lend an ear. In effect, Sprint is helping itself to losing customers but not addressing their needs. Think about that one for a bit.

In the event that Sprint does not rectify my overbilling issue, I will continue to draw attention to the fact that Sprint does gouge business customers, mistreats their consumer customer base for as long as I breathe.

The choice is up to Sprint. Would they rather satisfy a former customer and get a little good publicity or continue as you are now and continue to have your reputation erode and show just how stubborn and arrogant your company still is?

In closing I want to quote one of my favorite verses in the Bible (Proverbs 1:23-27)

“If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured my heart out to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed to my outstretched hand, since you ignore all of my advice and would not accept my rebuke. I will turn and laugh at your disaster; I will mock you when calamity overtakes you – when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.”

I know what you are probably thinking. How can I (Allen Harkleroad) call myself a Christian setting up a website like this. Just because I am a Christian, does not mean I must allow people and companies to take advantage of me. Remember Jesus himself kicked over the tables of the moneychangers and drove them out of the temple (Matthew 21:12-17).

You reap what you sow…

With that, I close.

Regards,
Allen Harkleroad
CEO

GMP Services Inc
Statesboro GA

Read the full story at www.sprint-really-sucks.com

Sprint Gouges Small Business Owner

Allen Harkleroad — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:58:33 GMT

It appears that several blogs and online publications are picking up my story about how Sprint Nextel gouged me for around $50,000.00. Stacey Higginbothom over at gigaom so eloquently states the story (In the Red? Sprint Says Gouge the Customer) that I am almost jealous of her writing skills (kudos to Stacey).

Valleyrag, err I mean Valleywag also picked up Stacey stories, however the information they posted wasn't quite correct. Sprint Charging 300 Percent Premium on T1's.

From the gigaom article comments

"So it’s OK for Sprint to stretch the truth, lie, and charge you too much for something because you expect people to do “due diligence” to figure out Sprint is ripping them off?

This is a reason why I am no longer a Sprint customer and lots of other people have moved on to other companies leaving Sprint with some pretty bad churn issues: if you have to do “due diligence” on a major firm like Sprint to catch lies, mistatements, misrepresentations, etc. then they shouldn’t be in business which is the direction they’ve been headed in for some time now. Honest companies keep customers. So if Sprint isn’t honest, it’s the customers fault for not doing “due diligence”. Now Sprint must pay the piper since they aren’t honest and too many people have figured it out." - gigaom

I like to use an electric company analogy. When I pay my electric bill I don’t have to worry about it as I am paying the current rate, and so is every customer that uses the same electric company. We don’t discover down the road that we are paying more per kilowatt than our neighbors. What the problem is they (SPRINT) has gotten away with it for so long that it has become standard operating procedure to stick it the customer and leave it up the to the customer to catch them. Perhaps there needs to be even further regulation of the industry to ensure that gouging doesn’t happen.

The reason why the electric company (local cable, local phone companies, etc.) doesn’t charge one customer and another customer something different is because all the customers are local (regional, etc.) and can talk to each other and compare notes if you will. Dedicated access companies such as Sprint has customers that are spread out and I am guessing that Sprint is taking advantage of the fact that these customers aren’t close enough to discuss services, therefore their is less scrutiny of it’s pricing. Well I aim to keep the cat out of the bag and perhaps help other current and potential customers from getting the bad end of the stick like I did with Sprint.

Due diligence shouldn’t fall on the customer, but on the company itself. Sprints sales reps lied to me 4 or 5 times about the cost when I asked about it, and actually told me the price would go up if I signed another agreement (thank God I didn’t ever sign another and went month to month). Agreed, I should have followed up on this a lot earlier, the fact of the matter I didn’t, however that doesn’t give Sprint the right to screw me long and hard.

Thanks everyone for helping bring light to Sprint's dishonest business practices and their lying sales representatives. Keep up the great work!

Read the full, unadulterated story about Sprint at www.sprint-really-sucks.com, it quite a good read (also a MP3 audio of a call to Sprint and catching them lying).

Allen

Sprints Customer Service Sucks

Allen Harkleroad — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:22:29 GMT

Now Read how Sprint Screwed me out of over $50,000.00

"A conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words" - John Lennon

Sprint Screwed me for $50,000 - The Full Story

Allen Harkleroad — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:17:37 GMT

Sprint gouged me to the tune of around $56,000.00

The purpose of this website is to bring light to the fact that Sprint often gouges customers, especially corporate and business customers. How do I know? Because I recently discovered that Sprint had been gouging me to the tune of $1445.25 dollars a month for three (3) years and four (4) months. Gouging me that is until I found out about it and pulled the plug on my Sprint T1 circuits. Who am I? I am Allen Harkleroad of Statesboro Georgia and I work for a small technology company in Statesboro.

Read my full story, view and listen to the evidence. www.sprint-really-sucks.com

Facebook Advertising SUCKS

Allen Harkleroad — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:16:21 GMT

I decided to test the waters using Facebook's self-service advertising. I should have known better. First of all there is no easy way to contact the advertising department. All emails are sent from "noreply" email addresses, there are no phone numbers, just a crappy and unhelpful "help section". I did eventually find a phone number for facebook.com but of course I got an automated "no one is available" message.

On the Facebook advertising system I added two (2) ads on for one of my 3D content websites called Poser World (www.poserworld.com) and one Designer Today (www.designertoday.com) that I have published since 1998. In short order both ads were declined. I guess the $10.00 daily ad budget I set wasn't enough income for the Facebook management. I sure wasn't going to sink a lot of money into advertising until I saw some results or at least some traffic from the ads.

Since my ads were declined I wanted my credit card removed form their advertising system. YOU CAN'T. You cannot delete a credit card, nor can you edit the card number unless you add a replacement credit card on file. The Facebook self service advertising system also has no way to delete or even request that your credit card be deleted. That sucks big time in my book.

Since I received such an immediate bad taste in my mouth regarding Facebook's advertising system I didn't want my credit card information on the Facebook.com website at all. I want my credit card off of Facebook. I don't plan to ever spend a nickle with you faceless facebook pricks.

Another thing that bothers is I think they store the 3 digit security code (CVV) which is against ALL credit companies policies. the 3 digit CVV code is not to be stored, only transmitted direct to the processor at the time of the sale. Talk about Facebook being ripe for identity theft

They should call themselves "FacelessBook", as they give you no easy way to call or even email them about advertising (or for anything else for that matter).

IN MY BOOK FACEBOOK.COM SUCKS AND THEN SOME.

Sincerely,

Allen Harkleroad
Owner and CEO

GMP Services and Media Publishers

Accepting Credit Cards Online? Easily Reduce Fraud and Chargebacks

Allen Harkleroad — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:14:06 GMT

May 7, 2008

I’ve been accepting credit cards online for quite a while, since 1991 in fact (17 years). Over the years, I have learned how to reduce credit card fraud chargebacks on the various stores I own or manage for clients. It took quite a while to learn the best possible methods for ensuring that the customer is legitimate at the time of purchase. At most, I have gotten three chargebacks in a 12-month period out of thousands of online orders in the same period.

It is not hard. However, it does require diligence on every order you accept. Even if you are a seasoned online merchant the guideline below may give you ideas or remind you that due diligence is the key to protecting yourself from credit card chargebacks.

Note that there are hyperlinks in this guideline. I use these trusted sources every day. Rest assured these sites and services (all free) will help you.

Reducing Online Credit Card Fraud Guidelines

This guide covers both US and Overseas order acceptance and shipping. If you only accept and ship orders in the United States reducing fraud is a bit easier. Remember though, just because your customer resides in the United States does not mean the order is 100% legitimate.

Backgrounder

Many new online merchants may be a bit confused about (numeric) IP addresses. Trust me they are your friend. Each computer that connects to the Internet is assigned an “Internet Protocol” numeric address and is much like a street address for your home. Occasionally these IP addresses are spoofed (faked). However, I have found this to be a rare occurrence. It is very hard to completly fake an IP address, very hard.

Each country on the planet earth is assigned IP address blocks, or groups of numeric addresses. You can look these IP addresses up and match the IP address to a country, states and sometimes a particular city. The important thing is to make sure that the IP address matches the general geographic location in relation to the customers billing or shipping address. As I go through the guideline, I will provide links so that you can lookup IP addresses of your customers.

As an online merchant that sells and ships good all over the planet, I have requirements that I place on each store that accepts credit cards

1. I have certain countries that I do not accept credit card (or PayPal) payments from due to the high percentage of credit card and online fraud. I have listed below the only countries I accept payments from or ship products to. Of course, you should decide for yourself if you are going to take orders from outside of the US or not. My list of acceptable countries is for your reference only, and should not be considered a perfect solution.

Countries that I accept credit cards from: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belize, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Caribbean, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa (only), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, U.A.E. (United Arab Emirates – Saudi Arabia), United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay.

If the country is not on my list, I do not accept orders from it and will void the order. I’ve been bitten once or twice by shipping products to countries not on my list. I no longer make exceptions. It isn’t worth the possibility of a chargeback. Chargebacks are expensive and too many of them can cause you to lose your merchant account.

2. I check ALL order IP addresses against the billing address of the credit card (I only ship to the card billing address). To place an order on my stores you must enter the credit card billing address and it must match. I used a credit card gateway called Authorize.net (www.authorize.net) to tie my online credit cards to my local bank account. Authorize.net has certain fraud detection features (Card Code Verification and Address Verification Service) that you can setup to check to make sure the billing address and zip code matches what the customer inputs when ordering. If it does not match your requirements, the credit card will be declined. It works and prevents fraud 99.95% of the time. I will go into detail about checking IP addresses further on in this guideline.

However, online fraudsters have used legitimate information to get past the Authorize.net checks. That is why I check IP addresses especially for digital downloads such as eBooks, Graphics content, music, images, software, etc. The IP address check will stop 99.99% of the digital download fraud. I will cover the IP lookup further on in this guideline. If your online store software does not record the customers IP address, find store software that does.

3. I require customers to use the three-digit security code from the back of the credit card or the four-digit code from the front of American Express cards. It’s called a CVV code. Most fraudsters don’t have access to this number unless they actually have the card in hand or somehow tricked someone into divulging the number. It is rare that this happens but has happened to me on occasion. Again, the IP address lookup helps limit fraudulent orders from getting through. If your online store software doesn’t have the option to require the CVV security code then fond software that does have the option to require it.

4. I state on my stores (at time of checkout) that customers are not to use free email accounts to place orders (hotmail, yahoo, etc.). I state that if a free email account is used that further scrutiny will be placed on the order such as a phone call, more internet investigation (reverse phone number lookup, Google map lookup, deeper IP address lookup, etc.) and could delay the order substantially. Most customers will use their ISP email address, as they want their product to be shipped as quickly as possible. If you handle overseas orders you may want to familiarize yourself with overseas free email providers (if you aren’t sure then check it).

5. I personally do not automate digital downloads. I don’t care how convenient it is for me or the customer (eBooks, digital photos, music, software, etc). I manually check the customers information and manually activate the download.

Fraudsters prey on stores that have unattended/automated processing and approval systems. If you feel comfortable with automated delivery without human intervention, then by all means do so, just be prepared for many credit card chargebacks. Mark my words on that.

I put a statement in the order emails and online receipts that digital delivery purchases are manually activated and I state a general time for processing. Something to the effect of activation can take 15 minutes to one hour during normal business hours and that orders placed after hours will be processed the following morning. Most customers will accept it, be sure to state clearly the business hours and processing times so that the customer will be patient and not drive you mad with harsh emails. I rarely have a customer email me, as I am very clear about processing times, in the order email receipt and online receipt. This not only protects you, but also protects all credit card users that purchase from you. It reduces your fraud liability as well.

Be prompt in processing orders as well. Being timely and attentive to your customers will net you more sales as they *will* tell others about the great customer service experience they had. I receive many sales because happy customers told others about how I take care of them. I live by this rule.

As an aside, your store software should store credit card numbers in encrypted format. If your store application does not do this, then find software that will. It protects you from fraud and your potential customers from identity theft.

The above is a guide to what you should do when accepting online orders. The next portion of this guideline goes into detail on how to easily check IP addresses, perform reverse phone number lookups, etc.

Verify your Customers Information

One of the most important things you should do when processing online orders is to check the actual location of the customer. As I mentioned earlier each computer is assigned a unique numeric address called an IP Address and they are assigned by country. IP addresses are your friends. IP address lookups will reduce your fraud rates by an order of magnitude.

There are several online (free) sources to check IP address and geographic location. My favorite is IronPort’s SenderBase and is covers nearly every IP address on the planet and you can look up the details (country, state, city, etc) for each IP address lookup. SenderBase is also a good source for mail server administrators to locate sources of Spam. Below is a quick walk-though on using SenderBase.

Note that large ISP’s may be in another city than the address of your customer’s credit card billing information (such as EarthLink, AOL, most cable companies), so don’t live and die by the IP address matching the exact city or state. If I am skeptical of the order/customer I look at several factors such as check the physical address in Google maps, use reverse phone number lookups (see further down) and many times, I will call the customer to verify.

Many sophisticated fraud artists have access to much of this information, however it is easy to check and verify that the person holding the card placed the order. I find that the IP address lookups prevent more than 90 to 95 percent of the fraud attempts I see each month.

enter the IP address

Results from IP address search

SenderBase (www.senderbase.org) is a great anti-fraud resource and will cover about 98% of the IP addresses you look up. Occasionally it will not be able to lookup an address for an unknown reason. However, there are several Internet Registry’s for assigned (IP ) numbers. The list below covers the assigned number registries.

SenderBase will give you the proper Whois lookup for that IP address even when it cannot give you more details on it.

American Register for Internet Numbers (ARIN) – Search for and lookup IP addresses located in the US, Canada and several outlying islands.

Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APIC) – Search for and lookup IP addresses located in Asian countries.

Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) – Search for and lookup IP addresses located in South America and the Caribbean.

RIPE – European Internet Address Registry - Search for and lookup IP addresses located in European countries.

African Network Information Center – Search for and lookup IP Addresses located in Africa.

SenderBase is the quickest and easiest way to look up IP addresses, however the above number registries covers the entire globe.

US Customer Additional Verification

It is harder to look up overseas address and phone number information. However, for US orders you have a plethora of ways to verify your customer, often without having to contact them directly. Most often fraudsters use free (throwaway) email address and legitimate customers will not mind giving you their (paid for) ISP email address. Fraudsters are unlikely to use their real email address when attempting to defraud you. I am not saying not be diligent in checking every order. However, I personally place more scrutiny on orders that are associated with a free email account. I have only had four fraudulent orders that actually used a non-free email account in nearly 17 years of accepting credit cards online.

Reverse Phone Number Lookups

I use several free reverse phone number lookup services to make sure the phone number matches the general geographic area as the customers billing address. A reverse phone number lookup will provide the address (or general city/state) by simply entering the phone number. Often times a customer will use a cell phone number. While the reverse phone lookup will not provide a specific address for a cell phone number, it will provide the city and state of the phone provider (will generally match the customers billing city or area). Even in the cases of cell phone numbers, reverse phone lookups will give you an added layer of comfort that the customer is in the general area as their address and phone number.

The below services are all free. Never pay for reverse phone number lookup information, if you cannot find what you need with the services below chances are a paid for service will not be any more helpful other than taking your money for nothing.

PhoneNumber.com – Lookup addresses and areas by phone number. Enter the phone number in xxx-xxx-xxxx format.

YellowBook Business Reverse Lookup

TollFreePhone.com - 800, 888, 877, 866 reverse phone number lookup

Anywho.com - AT&T provided reverse phone lookup.

While reverse phone number lookup are not 100% effective, it will help you to decide whether to accept or ship and order.

Use Google Maps it is a good address lookup if you feel the need. It does not hurt especially when shipping expensive products.

A Final Word

While the above methods will not prevent 100% of fraudulent orders and credit card misuse, it will prevent nearly all of it. I have used these methods for more than seventeen years and rarely to I ever have a charge back. The most I ever had due to fraud was three in a one-year period and that was because I was not diligent in checking out the customer’s location. Most brick and mortar establishments cannot claim such a low of a chargeback / fraud rate as I maintain. Using the methods outlined above and you can protect yourself from most credit card chargeback’s, and your potential customers from fraud.

For more information on the author and his online business presence visit www.gmpservices.com and www.mediapublishers.com

Disclaimer: This guide is not to be construed as a 100% percent foolproof method of preventing fraud or credit card chargebacks. This guide merely offers suggestion on how to combat fraud and chargebacks. This guideline is not legal advice, nor should you rely on the information contained 100%.