On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, David Charlap wrote:
Brad Knowles wrote:
B) KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU'RE GIVING ACCOUNTS TO so that (A) works. Get a credit card or verify the phone number and other info (e.g., call them back, insist on calling them back.)
Do you know how many credit cards are out there? Do you know how many of them are fake or stolen? You can't even get a decent charge that you can reliably apply to them, because the bank at the other end will refuse payment from a non-existent or closed account.
Then do what hotels do to avoid this problem.
When you are given the card number and info, you contact the bank and put a hold on the account for the expecte amount of the bill. When the bill actually comes due, you put the charge through. You know that the charge will succeed because the bank is already holding that amount.
If the card is stolen, bogus, overdrawn, etc., then you won't be able to place the hold. In which case, you reject the application.
This actually uses the standard mechanism for credit card transactions, if forget the proper terms but basically what happens is that you apply the charges at point of sale but then the settlement is actually authorised later on in the day, or in the case of not needing payment the charge is revoked. You dont normally notice this in day to day shopping.. The problems are that you need to put an amount through and that will be taken off the card holders credit limit so how much do you want to take? Too little and you've not really secured any cash, too much and you could reduce their available balance too greatly and cause them issues (they overspend!) But ok, your real point is that if the card isnt valid you will get a rejection there and then. But theres a catch to this also in that a lot of credit card fraud these days is done on valid numbers. This occurs quite simply as a result of going in a shop, giving someone your card and they either keep a copy of the number or where they dont get access to the systems can use hand held copiers to read the info off and upload later. These people then pass these perfectly legitimate numbers on.. Steve
CyberCafe's can't use (B), even if it did work. That would violate their basic premise.
What basic premise? Free anonymous access? That's new to me. Every one I've seen charges for access. They can easily require charge cards in advance, and place holds on them, in order to identify stolen cards and criminal users. And once a known-valid card is in hand, it can be used to directly impose penalty charges on those that violate the cafe's AUP (which should exist and have no-spamming/no-hacking clauses.)
If customers don't want to use charge cards, they can require a large cash deposit up-front, just like the video rental stores do if you try to get a membership without a charge card.
-- David