Do you have your customer send in photocopy of ID?

We have things locked down fairly well with multiple fraud detection. We do have a automated voice verification system if the order is suspect. So far it's doing a great job and saving us work and time. We don't ask for a photocopy of ID.
 
I have had to send my ID to many providers to get services. First time I recall was Thawte required it as part of getting a SSL. That was back in 1999 as I recall. The companies that I have gotten servers from in the past required ID to get servers a few times. That was a long time ago though. I haven't had the same issues with getting them in years. I guess since it is becoming a more common practice to do business with people all over the country and these providers have vastly more clients than before it is not such a big deal.

I remember back in those days getting a full T-1 was a big deal. Now everyone is wanting gigabit networks.
 
Yes they can open paypal disputes. That is the main disadvantage of 3rd party payment systems. If you did not issue a refund payment system provider will refund them.

If you can use a real payment gateway clients can not open disputes beacuse they don't know about your payment gateway company. Then you are the person who processing credit cards.


But if they asking a refund better to issue a refund. If they charge back problem will be a mess. You have to pay lot for charge back issues.

When we are doing business we have to face for loss & profits. You should abide the lost and profit. That is the nature of business.
 
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mishka said:
If you can use a real payment gateway clients can not open disputes beacuse they don't know about your payment gateway company. Then you are the person who processing credit cards.
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In the REAL world they can contact their card company and make a chargeback (dispute), so they dont need to know what payment gateway company you use.
 
easyhostmedia said:
If you ask for photo ID you need to make sure you have a secure method for users to send this too you, especially on a security aspect these days (ID theft risk etc.).

I was askede by 1 supplier when i ordered a $40 VPS, but he just wanted me to send this via standard email ( which is not a secure method) i refused and he could not provide any secure method, so i asked him to refund which they did.

also who are you sending this ID too, you need to check where the company based as you could be sending to someone why will sell this to criminals.
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I agree. If it does have to happen make sure the company is legit and have a secure SSL/Encrypted way of handling your personal ID / Information. :smash:
 
There could be the option to send the customer to a third party secure site that verifies their ID (the same way as you send them to a third party payment processor site). Then you don't need to see or verify the ID yourself.
There is the Jumio Netverify service - http://jumio.com/products/netverify/online-id-verification/
However i haven't tried it myself. If someone has tried it, please share your experience.
 
As long as they they make these purchases and agree to the terms of service, they should have no ability to dispute such a purchase and make illegitimate claims. That money belongs to you.
Also, we require this information in the case that an account is flagged for fraud. That is the only time. Otherwise, I feel like we would be scaring our clients away.
 
I dont think it helps much with paypal. If they file a dispute it will auto be in your favor due to intangible goods but they can always charge back through bank or credit card and you are not even allowed to defend yourself in that situation. I would say paypal does not even fight those in the least, simply charge back your account. It would require man hours and them actually doing something for the seller.

I am actually 100% sure they do not even try to fight for you because after I lost $2400 once due to someone charging back through bank a few months later I had a guy purchase some servers which I was reselling. The sale was good, all maxmind and manual verification checked out. SO I went the extra step and made a form for him to sign and scan, and then fax along with his id. Basically it said he would receive his products, declined management servers and was responsible for his own management, that we made no guarantee on server uptime, just network uplink. And threw in some other things to protect ourselves. This guy had a business web site and personal blog, everything. And was willing to do all this and understood.

TO make a long story short after 2 months he charged back through his credit card service claiming fraud of all things. We uploaded all documents, recorded phone calls, photo id, emails with full headers. Phone bill logs showing the amount and duration of calls.

Paypal did nothing, about 2 weeks later I got to looking on WHT and about 3 other hosts got duped the same way, some much worse. Paypal would not let us in on the arbitration process or anything, said they would handle it.

Now either credit card companies really let their people do this and get away with it multiple times or the latter is likely, paypal did nothing to fight. Probably did not pass along anything to the cc company.

A lot of server companies make you send ids and similar forms and such which a lot of them have the money and legal team to actually sue so unless you have a legal team or money to sue someone when you might not get anything then not much you can do.

I quit server reselling after that, was waaaay too risky for me. I continued doing ddos protection as the majority was legit clients and mainly I just accepted western union for those.

That is one thing you can do though if its a big sale and you stand to have a big loss is simply have them send WU. No way they can charge that back whether they used credit card or not.
 
felosi said:
I dont think it helps much with paypal. If they file a dispute it will auto be in your favor due to intangible goods
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Not always as their is no seller or buyer protection with intangible goods, so both seller and buyer have no protection.

I have had identical issues and have has paypal favour seller on one and then buyer on the other.

felosi said:
but they can always charge back through bank or credit card and you are not even allowed to defend yourself in that situation.
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Yes you can defend a chargeback, once you get a chargeback you just contact your bank and dispute this providing evidence. It is a hard task to get and chargeback fees returned to you by Paypal though.

We had a chargeback against us last year for £300 and once we provided our evidence to our bank this was overturned and we got our money back, it took our bank and the FSA 3 extra months for paypal to comply and refund our charges they made.
 
It may be helpful to have them show a photocopy of their ID in large purchases over $150-200, we don't do it for anything below that.
 
Jon N said:
It may be helpful to have them show a photocopy of their ID in large purchases over $150-200, we don't do it for anything below that.
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thats what we do more or less - a an expensive hosting should always have several layers of protection, and not only technology-wise. Allways try to pay as much attention on details and here you go :)
 
trueman1 said:
i will never send photocopy of my id, mostly because for security reasons. :news:
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depends how they ask you to send the documents. If they just ask you to email them then its a big NO NO as standard email is not a secure medium.

If they provide a secure channel to send these them i have no problem, but before i send anything i will do checks on the company i am sending the documents too
 
There is also the possibility to use a third party service for verifying the ID - http://jumio.com
However i haven't yet heard of anyone using them. Do you guys have experience with Jumio?
 
I agree with many here, asking for id could be a privacy problem. If you are really worried about it, and can afford it, a 3rd party verification service might work. Luckily I have not had any issues, but thanks for making me worry about it :)
 
If you are genuine and can work with the host, then between the 2 of you then you should be able to find a way that will be secure for you to verify, but if you plainly reuse to send the verification, then whats the host to think (whats he got to hide) and will most likely not want you as a client, its the same if a host cannot offer you a secure method to send then verification. I know i had 1 host several years ago ask me for a copy of my passport, official document showing my full address and my DOB. they just told me to email them to them which i refused and they would not provide me any other method, so i refused and told then i would not be using them. They then tried to get me to pay for the first month even though they could not verify me. i plainly told them no way and if they pursue this i would report them for being involved in ID theft as asking me to send sensitive material over an insecure medium. i never heard from them again.
 
So anybody that asks you to send id by mail is fraud?
Hey felosi what you did after quiting reselling servers?,I agree with you trueman1

Gridvirt so you sell dedicated servers??
 
vegas said:
So anybody that asks you to send id by mail is fraud?
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i said Email (email is NOT a secure medium). i.e. you can send an email to someone and they receive this, but that email can be rerouted someone from A to B and neither party would be aware of this.


so sending sensitive documents should be done through a secure channel (under an HTTPS) or if you need to post them though a reputable courier with a signature on receipt.
 
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