Re: Jeff & Kathy...
TicklingDuo said:
I wasn't real comfortable with the idea either. Since it is not something that you gusy are in favor of, I will leave it off the list. 😀
I thank you very much. Below is an interesting article I read dealing with theft on the net. Some of you may find it interesting.
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When Your Customers Steal
You know it's a slow news day when the news programs on TV turn
their attention to their favorite new consumer warning. "Beware
of online businesses!" they cry. "YOU could be SCAMMED on the
Internet!"
Every time I see one of these news stories, I groan, and wonder how
many sales my sites just lost.They make Internet businesses people look like a bunch of thugs who meet in a sewer all day long to torture innocent consumers.
There a lot more honest, hardworking Netrepreneurs out there
than scam artists. That doesn't make for a good news story,
though, so we all take the lumps for the transgressions of a
sordid few.
You know what I've never seen, though? I've never seen a headline
story about the CUSTOMERS who scam the Netrepreneurs. I've seen
stories about thieves robbing convenience stores. I've seen
exposes featuring the practices favored by professional
shoplifters. What about the "consumers" who target online
businesses when they steal?
I market both informational products and brand name merchandise on
the Internet. And I've been taken on both sides of the fence.
I publish a B2B (business to business) product called The Drop
Ship Source Directory. Recently, I received an email from someone
who bought my Directory on EBay, and had questions about how they
were to receive the information updates I send my customers every
month. There was only one problem.
I don't SELL my Directory on EBay.
I was forced to write back to that person and tell him that he
had been scammed. It was obvious to me that someone had purchased
my product from me, and was reselling it to others illegally. How
this scam artist expected to get away with reselling the product,
I'll never know. It contains nearly a thousand pages. There is a
copyright notice on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. It's like me buying Stephen
King's latest book on Amazon, typing it up into electronic form,
and then reselling it on EBay. I'd have to be nuts to try
something like that!
The above are both good examples of how WE, as Netrepreneurs,
get "scammed".
I caught the guy who was reselling my Directory on EBay.
What I did was this: The person who purchased the bootleg
Directory was naturally very upset. He had a fully functional
copy of the Directory. However, he would miss out on another
11 months worth of valuable information in the form of
monthly updates. I told him that if I were able to catch
this person and confirm what had happened, I would see to
it that his purchase was made good, and he would receive
the updates. He immediately sent me all the information
he had on the auctioneer. Sure enough, the auctioneer was
a customer of mine. I notified EBay's fraud department
([email protected]). I then contacted the perpetrator
and elaborated on the penalties of copyright infringement.
He pulled his auction listings immediately. We came to an
agreement for restitution that I was satisfied with. I
suggested to him that he refund the other people to whom
he had already sold bootlegs, before THEY came after him.
Companies! If you think you're being ripped off, don't just wait around to hear from someone about it. Contact the bank that issued the card, and the police in the area you think the perpetrator purchased from. They take credit card fraud very seriously, as well as copyright infringement.
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