On July 3rd (three blog entries down from here), I posted my "Laugh of the day" on a fake ID.  Last night, I had a potential customer throwing a pissy fit over the fact that I ask for IDs on questionable orders.  His order was as questionable as they get (IP routed to Boulder, CO, while listing a California billing address... not to mention the fact that I can easily pick up on US versus non US typing styles).

This potential customer apparently had the impression that we were a new company, and very small... and said that no one asks for IDs on any online purchases anywhere, and that it was silly for me to ask for it.  Even said that I should just provision any and all orders that come in and worry about the fraudulent crap later.

HAH!  IN YOUR DREAMS, BUDDY BOI!

I hit him back with the stuff below....

If there wasn't a cost factor involved (Chargebacks, licensing fees, all the work required to get a customer set up initially, etc), then maybe I could see where your argument would hold up very well.

The simple fact of the matter is that there's a lot more that happens behind the scenes when a hosting provider (doesn't matter if it's shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, SaaS type hosting) sets a customer up.

There's more anti-fraud reviews that go on than many people realize. Some providers just do a quick once over, while other providers (like us) scrutinize every order that comes in from a new customer. Existing customers are spot checked to make sure they have no past due balances. Past customers are checked to ensure they left and came back on a good note (for example, not owing any money from their last tenure with their hosting provider).

This isn't an uncommon practice, for both Solar or myself, personally. Solar has been around for over five years now and has always required ID on questionable orders. I've been in the online sector for nearly 15 years and handling anti-fraud reviews logn before I even joined the web hosting industry in 1999. One of the reasons I was brought on is because of my ability to sniff out fraudulent orders. In the past 13 years that I've been doing anti-fraud reviews, only 20 (previously legitimate) orders have come back as fraudulent.

When I worked for DedicatedNOW, I was performing anti-fraud reviews for them, and requesting IDs then.

Simple fact of the matter is this: As long as there are people on the internet, using credit cards to make purchases, there will be a plethora of fraudulent orders coming in.

If we had allowed these orders to come in first, provisioned them, and they ended up being fraudulent... how much money do you think a hosting provider would lose?

Take Solar, for example... we get between 20-50 fraudulent order attempts a week.

Chargebacks typically cost each provider between $10 - $35 per instance.
Let's not forget payment processing fees ($0.50 - $5.00 per instance).
Licensing fees? Between $3.75 - $15.00 per customer.
Labor costs in provisioning an order can range between $2.00 - $25.00

You can do the math on this.

As long as I am in charge of the sales and provisioning teams, we will continue to request IDs whenever there is a questionable order coming in. It makes for good business practices, not to mention the fact that I'm also protecting our potential customers from being victims of Fraud.

There's no way in hell that I am going to move away from how we do reviews...  Ross has entrusted me with a majority of the day to day operations of Solar... I'm not going to do anything that will cause financial damage to the company.  I will do whatever I have to do to ensure that Solar's assets are completely protected. 

When a customer decides to end a long term partnership with their hosting provider, it's usually because they're unhappy or the hosting provider no longer services their specific needs, or the customer's identified a cost savings by changing how they handle their hosting.

It's exceptionally rare when a customer will take the time to follow up their cancellation request with a notice on their server to thank their provider for the services and relationships formed.

My job (SolarVPS) received a notice from one such customer today... with a VERY touching and gratifying "Thank You" message.  Hemmo replied to his cancellation ticket with the following (name and URL removed to protect his identity):

Hello there,

Before you destroy the server and it's contents i would like to invite you
and your support staff (especially mr. Douglas Hazard) to visit the
currently still running webserver on the vps at (URL REMOVED)

Best regards,
Hemmo (LAST NAME REMOVED)

Since I don't want to violate our customer privacy policy, I had to obscure some stuff.  I did, however, take a screenshot of what he put up on his VPS for us.  Click the picture below to see the full size version:



Hemmo, it's been my absolute pleasure with working with you over the past three years, and for Solar to work with you over the past four.  You've always been a *great* guy to have around, and Solar's hurting just a bit by not having you around as a customer going forward.

Thank you, Hemmo, for the honor of working with you. 

So I'm now two days removed from coming back from HostingCON 2010 (www.hostingcon.com) and now a week removed from the insanity that's been driving my crazy hours over the past few months.  It's still busy with work, and I'm working on a new design for Lanny's (LRBSports.com) www.fearlessfriday.com.

Thankfully, that's ALL that is on my plate right now, aside from a few more things to do in the yard outside.  Only major task left is to get the garage cleaned up completely, better insulated, painted and then move my office out there.

My uncle Nate and I reinsulated nearly 2300 sq foot of attic space two days before my birthday, and we're noticing a remarkable difference in how well the house cools down, though our friggin' electric bills are still through the roof.  Keeping in mind that it's been a hotter than normal summer and the fact that Georgia Power jacked rates up by nearly 10%, I guess I can't bitch too badly about the $266 electric bill we just got today.

Some notes about HostingCON:
* If you haven't read my boss's latest blog, you have to read it!  https://solarvps.com/blog/

* I think Ross slightly over-embelished my involvement to the whole 6th street incident.  Sure, I've had a few neighbors that were certifiable, and yeah, I live in Atlanta, so I know how to generally deal with these situations... but still..


All kidding aside, all three of us were definitely in shock  Yeah, I was initially laughing about the banality of this woman's actions... until I realized that Ross was genuinely in shock.  Poor Bahshad definitely was too stunned to do anything, and once I stopped laughing, I realized that I had to get this gal away from all three of us.  She definitely was higher than a kite.  Ross' description of her didn't do her justice.  Kate Moss would be jealous of this "lady of the night"'s skinniness.

It was deffo the talk of more than a handful of folks at HostingCON, that's for sure.

I've got to give a few shout outs here...

Eric Gregory (www.cpanel.net) - It was GREAT to finally put a face with the email, dude!  After communicating with you off and on for the past few years, it was nice to see you in person. 

Babak Kimiyai (www.parallels.com) - Dude... you've been in the sun too long!  I thought Ukranians were supposed to be pasty white!    Was great seeing you again!

Terry Myers (www.vps.net) - I'm really sorry we didn't get a chance to connect longer than the few minutes we did, was a busy time for us all.  Next time!

ALL the guys at www.webhostingtalk.com (Unka Dennis, Lois, Paul, Mike, Chris, ProSlacker) - Always a pleasure to see y'all again.  Chris... pace yourself next year, man... and remember to take breaks!  Paul, sorry that I had issues hearing ya... it was REALLY noisy, hah!

Jordan "Jordie" Jacobs - Dude!  It was GREAT to finally see you in person, even though we've known each other for damn near five years... sucks that you moved way out to PHX... holler the next time you're back in ATL!

Microsoft - Damn, your booth really was subpar this year.  Hope to see you back to your usual glory next time.

cPanel - Shout out to ALL of the cPanel guys for pulling off a great party at the Pure Ultra Lounge... was very loud, but enjoyable.  I was especially flatered that the guys at the door knew who I was without me even whipping my badge out OR being in my Solar shirt.  Definitely honored to have that happen, guys.  You ROCK!

Pure Ultra Lounge (http://pureultralounge.com/) - For a retro bar that's trying to be high-tech... y'all got a pretty nice setup there.  Thank you for graciously hosting the cPanel party.  I want to especially thank the cute short bartender (she was working the 1st floor bar, closest to the door) for lookin' out for me.  She's definitely an asset to your establishment.  Next time I'm in Austin, I will happily come back to your lounge!  Just get some stuff to make Chocoloate Martinis, will ya?

Overall, was definitely an interesting yet fun trip.

What's next for me?  TAKING IT EASY AROUND THE HOUSE for the next couple weeks.  Garage should be done before August is halfway done..

Labor Day, September - IRON CHEF II:  BATTLE AT THE ROCK!  I cannot WAIT for this to happen.  For our competitors... heads up, guys... BRING IT!  My BBQ sauce has been sitting for almost 17 months.  I'm bringing it out for this part.  You BETTER step up your game, rookies!  You got FOUR of the battest chefs/cooks/BBQ enthusiasts of the ENTIRE family teaming up to take you wimps on.  Don't even THINK about trying to take it easy on us; we ain't gonna go easy on you.  :

If you're going to be in the ATL area on Labor Day this year, hit me up on FaceBook for an invitation, if you want one.  Bring money, cause we're not doing this one for free.  It's *THAT* big this year ($10/person - any money left over gets donated  to charity).

For those of you that remember a recent blog entry about the lengths I'll go to combat Credit Card Fraud (See this blog post), I had a doozie of a review today.

This also goes to show the lengths that these frauding twits will go to in order to try to get an order through.

I reviewed an order that claimed to have originated from the country of Tunisia.  The account holder had a very American sounding name, however, there were a few other red flags.   So, I did what I normally would do... ask for the first six digits of a Credit Card (it identifies only the country of issuance and the financial institution issuing the card itself) and a scanned passport, driver's license or government issued ID.

Obviously the CC info was fake (started with a 9).  See below for the ID that was sent.  The entire team had a huge laugh about this.  NOTE:  This is obviously a blatant alteration/forgery, so no personally identifiable info is being released, aside from some poor guy's picture.

Keep in mind that the name used for the account was Melissa S (not revealing the last name here, to keep privacy intact)



How sad is that?