Hi,

I recently added paypal to my list of accepted ways to pay.

Today I received an order from someone in the Philippines (red flag 1). Lets say his account name that he set up with me was Don Juan, and his paypal name is Jose Michaels (red flag 2). The only thing matching here thus far is the email address, but it's a gmail account, which really means nothing as far as showing who you are (red flag 3). Finally his account has an unverified address (red flag 4). With this entire transaction, I'm not eligible for seller protection, so my brow is raised.

I'd hate to just cut off any potential clients that would actually want to host out here in the states, but it's hard to trust any of this.

Do I just let this ride? Is my red flags not really red flags? This entire order stinks to me.

Thanks for any input.

What about his/her IP address that the order was placed from, does it match the city/state?

What about a phone number? Where is it located?

If you have an IP, find out who the ISP is and ask for the email address he has with the ISP, or ask for an ID of the paypal account holder.

First of, location means nothing. I have good client from the Philippines, China, Russia and other nations most people compare to corruption.

If your client buys a webhosting package from you I suggest you monitor it for a while. Check all the files being uploaded and read the logs. But it is always your decision.

Where there it's not clear cut and your fraud system (Maxmind etc...) leaves the result open, I have always worked on the basis of - if my gut says no, it's probably fraud; if my gut says yes, let's take a chance and see.

My gut has never been wrong :)

Why not try phoning them? I've often phoned people up who've ordered and had things confirmed that way.

Let it run and monitor closely

Where there it's not clear cut and your fraud system (Maxmind etc...) leaves the result open, I have always worked on the basis of - if my gut says no, it's probably fraud; if my gut says yes, let's take a chance and see.

My gut has never been wrong :)

Why not try phoning them? I've often phoned people up who've ordered and had things confirmed that way.

I agree with this, try calling him to confirm.

Cheers

100 % fraud activity, if not have negative plan why should sign up with different name, i really sure after sign up get account he will ask refund..

It is possible for it to be a completely true order as he may be using his friends's paypal account to pay for it. I would agree with tickedon about phoning him.

We have had several customers where there is a difference between the paypal name and account name and surprisingly none of them have been fraudulent (in recent memory, at least). Most were part of an organization where one person handles billing and would be the billing contact whereas they list someone as as the main technical contact.

Do you have any anti-fraud system like maxmind turned on in your whmcs? We always do a verification call if the order is suspect and will pop a helpdesk ticket to notify the customer that the order may be delayed while be verified.

Even if you don't go to that extreme, follow-up with an email if you can't reach them by phone - no sense in loosing a customer because they think you're not working their order.

Thanks for all the replies guys, this has been VERY insightful. Not sure how to ultimately handle these guys yet, but has given me much to think about.