Author Topic: Fraudulent purchase and our earnings (Read 3599 times)

rene · « **on:** August 21, 2008, 10:22 »

I've just found it at Istock forum.
Istock admin Joyze said:
"When we find fraudulent purchases, we do a refund back to the credit card so that the original owner of the card doesn't have to pay for the purchase. If the person who made the fraudulent purchase then uses the credits to download files, we do not remove the royalties you've earned from that download. iStock takes that one for the team! I believe that is the compensation that sjlocke is speaking of."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=74099&page=1
Istock is only one "gentelman" site ?
Why Fotolia, Dreamstime and Bigstock... don't do it.

madelaide · « **Reply #1 on:** August 21, 2008, 10:30 »

Given the 80% share of theirs and also their size, I believe they have a margin for that niceness. FT and DT might do that without much suffering, BigStock and smaller sites however could have problems.

Regards,
Adelaide

jsnover · « **Reply #2 on:** August 21, 2008, 11:42 »

I do think that sites should improve their processes to handle credit card verification so that fraudulent transactions are never (or very rarely) allowed to go through. I can only assume that IS has got the fraud down to a small percentage of transactions or they'd never be able to afford to eat the losses.

As others have pointed out, scads of online business handle credit card transactions and you don't get the goods if they don't verify your card. I would assume that the bulk of these problems occur with first time purchasers of credits or subscriptions. I have a hard time fathoming how it is that FT could take months to reverse sales and why all sales (at BigStock for example) have to be subject to waiting periods when only a small fraction are actually at risk.

When I did freelance work a while back I had a client that never paid on time. It always happened that the day I called to say they were late and ask where the check was, I'd be told that they were doing the check run later that day. I think they just managed cash flow this way - delaying payments as much as they could.

The sites can overall make more money by increasing the amount of time they have both the customers' money and ours. The amounts are small for any one of us, but I bet that overall it's enough to mean a little more income in their pocket.

dnavarrojr · « **Reply #3 on:** August 21, 2008, 12:02 »

If the company puts the funds into an interest bearing account, it can generate quite a bit of additional revenue depending on their overall business model.

I asked about this type of thing at a Dell shareholder meeting a number of years back because Dell does automatic rebates instead of just lowering their price up front. I was told the extra $200 to $400 per purchase sitting in an interesting bearing account added an additional $10 million in revenue for the company over just lowering the price.

johngriffin · « **Reply #4 on:** August 21, 2008, 16:37 »

what are some of the fraudulent tricks that people do or that you have seen or heard about?

michaeldb · « **Reply #5 on:** August 21, 2008, 20:34 »

In July somebody bought a bunch of my images - about $200 worth - in one day on FO, using the name 'Joshua Carrier'.

Not until many days later did FO revoke the credits I had earned saying, "Credit card refused." So now I still have a negative amount of credits there.

Of course, I googled 'Joshua Carrier', with no useful results. I guess I can't fault FO. But I wonder what 'Joshua Carrier' is doing with my images.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Fraudulent purchase and our earnings (Read 3599 times)

rene

madelaide

jsnover

dnavarrojr

johngriffin

michaeldb

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors