Re: amazonaws.com?

["Dorn Hetzel" <dhetzel () gmail com>]

Oh, come on...  Businesses buy services every day that have to be paid for
by methods like wire transfer.  We're not talking about making it the only
payment method, just the method for deposits for "risky" services.  I wonder
what percentage of Amazon E2C customers even want outbound port 25 access
anyway.  Of those that do want port 25 access, how many are going to wind up
being more trouble than they are worth?

And it's not really central to this conversation, but I don't think Amazon
is in *any* danger with respect to their merchant account, almost no matter
what they do :)


On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Joel Jaeggli <joelja () bogus com> wrote:

> Dorn Hetzel wrote:
>
> > There is a really huge difference in the ease with which payment from a
> > credit card can be reversed if fraudulent, and the amount of effort
> > necessary to reverse a wire transfer. I won't go so far as to say that
> > reversing a wire transfer is impossible, but I would claim it's many
> > orders
> > of magnitude harder than the credit card reversal.
>
> To paraphrase one of my colleagues from the user interaction world:
>
>        "The key to offering a compelling service is minimising
>        transaction hassles."
>
> I encourage all my competitors to implement inconvenient hard to use
> payment methods....
>
>
>  A mere "court subpoena" wouldn't even be remotely sufficient.  The person
> > wanting their money back would pretty much have to sue for it and win.
> > Heck, people that get scammed and send their money via western union can't
> > even get their money back...  People who sell physical goods that get
> > shipped internationally to places where they can't get them back from have
> > been dealing with irrevocable payment forms for a long, long time, and
> > those
> > are generally wire transfers.
> >
> > Once that guy in Frackustan has my widgets, I need to make darn sure he
> > can't take his money back :)
> >
> > So, yeah, there would be some customers for whom the couple of business
> > hours it take their wire to go through (that's a pretty typical time from
> > my
> > actual experience) would be longer than they would want to wait for their
> > port 25 or other "risky" service to be enabled, but really, how many is
> > that
> > going to be.  We're not talking about the wait for ordinary customers who
> > don't need those particular services that tend to be problem children, and
> > we're not talking about existing accounts of long standing, just about a
> > barrier for the drive-by customer who wants to use services and then not
> > pay
> > the cost when they violate the AUP...
> >
> > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Peter Beckman <beckman () angryox com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >  On Wed, 28 May 2008, Barry Shein wrote:
> > >  On May 28, 2008 at 21:43 beckman () angryox com (Peter Beckman) wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Wed, 28 May 2008, Dorn Hetzel wrote:
> > > > >  I would think that simply requiring some appropriate amount of
> > > > > >
> > > > > irrevocable
> > > >
> > > > > funds (wire transfer, etc) for a deposit that will be forfeited in the
> > > > > >
> > > > > case
> > > >
> > > > > of usage in violation of AUP/contract/etc would be both sufficient and
> > > > > >
> > > > > not
> > > >
> > > > > excessive for allowing port 25 access, etc.
> > > > > >
> > > > >  Until you find out that the source of those supposedly irrevocable
> > > > funds
> > > >
> > > > >  was stolen or fraudulent, and you have some sort of court subpoena to
> > > > give
> > > >
> > > > >  it back.
> > > > >
> > > > >  I don't believe there is a way for you to outwit the scammer/spammer
> > > > by
> > > >
> > > > >  making them pay more of their or someone elses money.  If you have
> > > > what
> > > >
> > > > >  they need, they'll find a way to trick you into giving it to them.
> > > > Are you still trying to prove that Amazon, Dell, The World, etc can't
> > > > possibly work?
> > > >
> > > >   Amazon and Dell ship physical goods.  Amazon Web Services sells
> > > services,
> > >  as do I.  Services are commonly enabled and activated immediately after
> > >  payment or verification of a valid credit card, as is often expected by
> > >  the customer immediately after payment.  Shipment of physical goods will
> > >  almost always take at least 24 hours, often longer, enabling more
> > > thorough
> > >  checks of credit, however they might do it.
> > >
> > >  And even with the extra time to review the transaction and attempt to
> > >  detect fraud, I'm confident Amazon and Dell lose millions per year due
> > > to
> > >  fraud.  The reality is that the millions they lose to fraud doesn't
> > > affect
> > >  us because a Blu-Ray player purchased with a stolen credit card doesn't
> > >  send spam or initiate DOS attacks.
> > >
> > >  At least not yet; those Blu-Ray players do have an ethernet port.
> > >
> > >  By your reasoning why don't the spammers just empty out Amazon's (et
> > >
> > > > al) warehouses and retire! Oh right, they'd have to sell it all over
> > > > the internet which'd mean taking credit cards...
> > > >
> > > >   Now you're just being rediculous.  Or sarcastic.  :-)
> > >
> > >  I am a big, big fan of assessing charges for AUP abuse and making some
> > >
> > > > realistic attempt to try to make sure it's collectible, and otherwise
> > > > make some attempt to know who you're doing business with.
> > > >
> > > >   Charging whom?  The spammer who pays your extra AUP abuse charges with
> > >  stolen paypal accounts, credit cards, and legit bank accounts funded by
> > >  money stolen from paypal accounts and transferred from stolen credit
> > >  cards?
> > >
> > >  If you are taking card-not-present credit card transactions over the
> > >  Internet or phone, and not shipping physical goods but providing
> > > services,
> > >  in my experience the merchant gets screwed, no matter how much money you
> > >  might have charged for the privilege of using port 25 or violating AUPs.
> > >  That money you collected and believed was yours and was in your bank
> > >  account can be taken out just as easily 6 months later, after the lazy
> > >  card holder finally reviews his credit card bill, sees unrecognized
> > >  charges and says "This is fraudulent!"  And there you are, without your
> > >  money.
> > >
> > >  Getting someone to fax their ID in takes extra time and resources, and
> > >  means it might be hours before you get your account "approved," and for
> > >  some service providers, part of the value of the service is the
> > > immediacy
> > >  in which a customer can gain new service.
> > >
> > >
> > > Beckman
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Peter Beckman                                                  Internet
> > > Guy
> > > beckman () angryox com
> > > http://www.angryox.com/
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------