We Should Have Seen This Coming

[Dips]

Last March we sold a software package to a woman in Canada. It was paid for with a credit card. Billed and shipped to the same address.

The woman later called us and told us not to ship because the card was stolen. She wanted to get it straightened it. We held the order.

She called back a day later and had us ship it.

After we had shipped it, a woman called (we don't know for certain whether it was the same woman) and spoke with Eugene. She again claimed that her credit card was stolen and she didn't want the software.

If you are confused about this, you're not alone. Why would someone steal a credit card and use it to buy a very specialized software package and have it shipped to the cardholder's address?

No matter. We have a 90-day guarantee so anyone is entitled to refund within 90 days of purchase regardless of the reason. So we told her to ship the software back and we'd refund the price less shipping.

She became emotional and pointed out that she shouldn't have to pay for shipping at all, nor go to the effort of shipping it back. Her card was stolen!

After listening to this for a while, Eugene checked with one of the owners and she OK refunding the shipping as well. He also told her to just destroy the package instead of shipping it back. We issued the credit and then we did what we always do when we refund software. We went into our database and invalidated the license so nobody would be able to activate it.

It was weird and maybe a scam, but no real harm done.

About two days later, a person with another name who lived at the same address registered and activated another older license.

So maybe the person bought a license, then realized they already had one and rather than just return it, made up that whole story so they wouldn't have to pay shipping.

It's kind of a sucky thing to do, but not really worth making a stink about.

Fast forward to today. One of our programmers was browsing on EBay and found a copy of our software listed for sale. The seller had photgraphed the box which had the short form of the serial number on it. He looked it up in our database and saw it was the the very same license for which we had issued a refund. The poor buyer won't be able to activate it because it's not a valid license.

The programmer contacted the seller to let him know. It's quite possible that the seller bought it from our SC and isn't aware that he is listing something that will get him negative feedback. Hopefully he appreciates the heads up.

We also reported the auction to EBay to ask them to remove the listing in case the seller doesn't remove it himself.

We aren't at any risk of losing anything more because the license can't be activated. But I'll be damned if we stand by and allow someone innocent get scammed by an SC.

[bainsidhe]

Now I have to wonder, is there anyway of contacting Visa or Mastercard and giving them a heads-up that these cards were stolen? You know, just doing your civic duty and all.

[PepperElf]

oooooo sneaky but hey go for it.
+ all in one

[I_Hate_SCs]

...The programmer contacted the seller to let him know. It's quite possible that the seller bought it from our SC and isn't aware that he is listing something that will get him negative feedback. Hopefully he appreciates the heads up.

We also reported the auction to EBay to ask them to remove the listing in case the seller doesn't remove it himself....

I am sure the seller is the same SC who claimed their credit card was stolen, maybe the husband of the wife who had the stolen credit card and called your company. Was the item's location in Canada? I'm also sure eBay didn't remove the item if the seller didn't do it. Sorry to get a little bit off topic, but if that is the SC selling it on eBay, then she deserves the negative feedback. However, unfortunately, SC buyers on eBay will neg sellers for anything imaginable (just read the feedback board on eBay's site...a negative received for packing the item with green packing peanuts when the buyer prefered white ones!) The worst thing is sellers cannot give buyers a negative feedback in return when they have a negative experience in a transaction, they can only give positives. And also, they can't give a positive with negative text because they'll get in trouble with eBay. eBay simply plays into the whole 'customer is always right' mantra.

/off topic rant

[Dips]

Now I have to wonder, is there anyway of contacting Visa or Mastercard and giving them a heads-up that these cards were stolen?

No. The original return happened over nine months ago. There wouldn't be much point now. Although it's an amusing thought.

I am sure the seller is the same SC who claimed their credit card was stolen, maybe the husband of the wife who had the stolen credit card and called your company. Was the item's location in Canada?

We have no way of knowing that for certain, so we are starting out by assuming the seller is an innocent dupe. If he is, then he will appreciate the heads up. If he isn't, he was warned...

I'm also sure eBay didn't remove the item if the seller didn't do it.

eBay has the means for copyright owners to file reports about items that violate their copyright. I filed the report and now it is up to eBay and the seller to do the right thing and remove the item before some poor sucker buys it.

We aren't going to be affected financially since the license is officially dead, but we want to avoid having somebody innocent get ripped off.

We'd also rather not have to deal with the ripped-off innocent when they call us because they can't activate their illegal license. I'd rather not be the first person to tell someone he was scammed and there's nothing I can do for him.

UPDATE: I just checked and the auction has been taken down. I don't know whether it was by the seller or by eBay. Either way, it's good news.

[Becks]

a negative received for packing the item with green packing peanuts when the buyer prefered white ones!

Oh, look. A -a-thon.

[Dips]

It looks like everything has been resolved. The auction was taken down by eBay and the seller was notified of the reason and given our contact information so he could talk to us if he wished to.

Which he did, he sent an email. Before I could reply to it, he called and got Mark.

It turns out that he bought an insurance salvage lot and the software was in it. The other items he was selling confirmed this story, so we believe him. An employee listed it without calling us first and the rest is history.

He was upset at first but calmed down quickly when he realized we weren't accusing him of anything and Mark pointed out that having the sale go through would have been a much worse outcome for him as the seller.

So the end of the story is not very exciting, but I really didn't *want* it to be, you know? I'd rather avoid stress and drama whenever possible.

[Dips]

Sigh...

I thought this was done, but not quite.

The eBay seller called today and got Eugene. He wanted to buy a license to make his copy legal because someone in his office saw the box and wanted to buy it.

No problem. Licenses start at $600 for an individual license.

Since he already had the box and stuff, he was hoping he could get the license for $100.

Uh, no. The price is $600.

He felt that wasn't fair since he had "nearly" everything he needed but the license. He shouldn't have to pay $600 for just the license.

Eugene pointed out that all he had was a disk and a box, which have no cash value. The disk will run as a demo without the license and we give demos out for FREE all the time. People who want to turn demos into licensed copies have to buy the license. For $600.

So the eBay seller tried another tack. The fellow who wanted to buy it couldn't afford $600.

Eugene explained that we don't issue discounts to people based on financial need. Mainly because 99% of our customers are in the same boat financially. Giving some customers a discount then having to charge other, equally broke, customers a higher price to meet out costs wouldn't be very fair, would it?

He had no answer for that and gave up.