What a shame!!It hurts for all us merchants who are trying to do our best!really it makes me sad.

I only have one thing to say...BEWARE...the thief is just around the corner!!!
has this happenned to you too????

Message edited on: 07/29/2004 15:16

Maybe the person bought it under a different pseudonym, and downloaded it using the wrong name, a name that doesn't show in your records.

Not really , I received a notification of FRAUD from the RR market place...this is why I decided to post this here.

How the hell does this happen?

I don't understand what I'm looking at?

Somebody bought all that stuff from neftis, then did a charge-back on their credit card. So they prolly downloaded the stuff..but neftis wont get paid. This really sucks. :(

Oh no, that's a bummer. People can be so unscrupulous :-( Thanks for explaining...

Yes Those are likely "chargebacks" whereby the person buys the items with a credit card gets the downloads and then reports the purchases to the credit card issuer as Fraudulent or unauthorized the credit card company simply reverses the charges and renderosity has to give back the money plus fees and or penalties. this practice usually results in a permanent IP ban from rosity imposed on the perpretrator.. sorry to hear this happened to you Neftis :-(

Sorry Neftis. :(

This is terrible. Sorry to see this has happened (:

Most of us don't buy everything from a merchant at once, if the merchant makes a variety of items. We might scoop up the rest of the hair or all the textures or all the clothes for a particular model if we have been pleased with a prior purchase... but we don't sweep the shelves of everything not nailed down including the shelfpaper. This, however, looks more like someone who is part of a ring of thieves. Whether the files end up on a CD at computer shows or get shared online, it is going to hurt. I'm not sure what the FBI limits are for damages, but if this person also struck other merchants here with the same thoroughness, he probably crossed them. You might talk to Cooler about how to track down pirates. sorry. :( Carolly

I was going to ask that...can't this person be tracked somehow? You might not be able to get your money back but maybe we can go let the air out of his/her tires or something.

Hi Neftis, very sorry to hear this happened to you. :O( I agree with Carolly, if you can track the person or persons responsible down and feed them to the FEDs that would be great. The FBI does have the Internet Fraud task force, but theft by credit card, wire transfer, etc., normally is the providence of the Treasury Department, and the Secret Service specifically.

Here's the thing regarding chargebacks - unless the card was stolen activating a chargeback does not invalidate one's obligation to pay. Most of the time companies let it slide - I don't honestly understand that as a chargeback is the equivalant of cancelling a check - something a company would definitely look into and go after. To activate a chargeback the consumer is telling the CC company that there was a fraud involved, either they were refused a refund or the product was not what it appeared or someone stole their card. If their card was stolen or purchases made through fraud than they should have cancelled the card, if not and they did not contact the store/company they were paying and follow their procedures than their fraud still requires that they pay up. In other words it could go to court in the same way as a cancelled check, but in general companies don't do that shrug.

Please before we start with all this talk about the "FEDS" and international manhunts lets not lose our perspective.!! While these charge backs are certainly a problem for all of use who deliver our product digitally it s Not likely that the "FEDS"or any one will allocate precious resources, in these perilous times, to track down $142 worth of "poser hair"( no offense to neftis) particularly if the alleged thief lives outside of the U.S. and remember many credit card companies have a very broad "customer satisfaction" policy that allows chargebacks based on some rather subjective criteria such as the purchase "did not perform as advertised" blah blah blah :-/ im not saying we merchants should just lay down and take it but embarking on some legal crusade to get these people can quickly add up to in "hassle factor" and Currency to an amount that far exceeds the value of what was charged back.

The thing is that if a customer claims that a product "did not live up to expectations" etc. they need to still go through the proper channels. I'm sure that a complaint could be filed with the credit card company after all that type of fraudulant action is against the cc terms of use. Point being that to claim one item is not performing well is one thing, but 10 items at least (barring any other purchases from other merchants) is another and the CC CO. would probably see it as fraud.

and if you really want to wake them up, report them to Homeland Security as a terrorist lmao

I have no idea what you can do about this Neftis, I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am to hear this has happened to you.

So sorry Neftis, what a shame people do these kind of things :o(

That is awful. I didn't even know we could do that with our credit cards. I hope I am the only one who didn't know. I am honest and would not do that but if someone dishonest didn't know, now they know. ;o( France

Thanks for all the response guys AND for all the concern. I got lucky...I received this message from RR "Credit issued due to credit card chargeback (fraudulent credit card use). Member has been banned and the credit card has been blocked from being used on Renderosity. First time buyers flag was not removed so Product was Never Downloaded." So I got lucky after all;) Altough it is not the first time it happenned, I had the exact same thing at another digital market for few days ago...but this time, the person did get the downloads. I have the facts. But still, it left us all (the merchants) with yet another problem to deal with.But really, what can we do??

Glad to hear it worked out for the better Neftis. I am always worried that when people pull underhanded tatics on venders that they will leave and all of us who love your (thier) work will loose out too. Like the way we all lost Mitch.

Good news, neftis. So glad it has all worked out.

I was hired to produce a comic for someone early last year, was paid $1000 and got a hit with a Paypal chargeback 3 months later. The credit card used to put money into the paypal account that paid me was stolen. Fortunately I had already taken $500 out of my Paypal account before Paypal took back the rest so at least I got something for my work. Now I'm trying to join a Paypal classaction lawsuit settlement to get the rest of my money back.

I got hit by mehmetkaz too. Luckily in my occasion only one item (but also hair).

What sucks is that since it was bought last month, the money have been paid (and spent) and now I get a deduction of the amount of money Rosity owes me for this month. Again, since it's only one product, it isn't a BIG deal to me, but...

At Daz you do not get hit by this, they absorbe any chargebacks (which is why they get their percentage of your sales). Here Rosity takes 50% and yet you still have to cover chargebacks yourself.

At the occasions where someone has bought more than one thing at a time from me (happens all too rarely L) and it is a name I've never seen before, I've asked ClintH to check it. This is the 4th time this happens to me and it is highly annoying. Well at least this mehmetkaz apparently never downloaded the stuff. Could be someone who didn't understood the principles of shopping on the internet, and not necessarily a deliberate attempt of stealing, but still it sux.

Message edited on: 07/30/2004 00:33

I pay by money order. Once the money orders are sent. That is it, "No refund" I do not have Credit cards at all.

Join the club Robo2010! I gave up those evil CCs years ago, now if I have the cash then I simply can't order...but we don't have to pay those darn monthly fees anymore now do we?!? Farside; aint that the pits?! I too did an MSCE class last month for what was supposed to be a legitamate school. 7 days after depositing their check my bank sends me a notice that I'm over drawn and owe fees!&#;$&! Luckily the school must know my history, when I showed up that very day in their office they sent someone right out to bring me back cash...with coverage for my bank fees too! (and then argued with the bank and got those fees overturned!!)

Yes, this month the same problem happened to me. Its really sad.

Hmm it seems like mehmetkatz have been "byuing" a lot of hair. Anyone else met this guy? :o(

It could be worth a letter to this persons ISP, assuming that the marketplace here records the IP address used. Advise the ISP that you believe his individual is using their network for criminal activities and file a police report. The police may not take it very far but every report filed can be used if he/she does this sort of thing again.

yeah.. same guy got 3 of my products too..seem to have been on a major shopping spree... luckily he didn't get any downloads..

Hmmm Either this guy is very cheeky or very stupid. It COULD be that he wasn't aware that he had to actually PAY for all this stuff, if he's a kid/adolescent and possiby not used to internet shopping. Seems silly to me to draw that amount of attention to yourself if you've planned to cheat. But then again I'm a naive fool who likes to believe in the good in man.

Not naive. Doesn't matter if you go at it from a moral perspective, or from a Game Theory perspective (the school that led to MAD and the Prisoner's Delimmae), or from a religious perspective. I think of it as reversing local entropy; increasing the niceness level of the universe. The person you help will at some point help another. The person you trust will trust another, and it goes forth from there. Don't let a few "users" force you into behavior that brings the whole system down.

It could be that some kid was using the folks charge card

OMG thats just jacked the F@#$K up! do these people have no self-dignity?! is there something that can be done about that? ---Essie

This is driving me crazy. I recognize the name "mehmetkaz" but don't know where from. It will hit me at 3am. Kristta

this happened to me too back in June, but with someone else. shrug what could I do?

It's people like that that ruin the experience for everyone else - glad it worked out for you this time neftis. Would limiting credit card payments to those through paypal solve this type of problem? Don't know what happens to the merchant if someone does a chargeback to paypal.

"Credit issued due to credit card chargeback (fraudulent credit card use). Member has been banned and the credit card has been blocked from being used on Renderosity. First time buyers flag was not removed so Product was Never Downloaded." Maybe the person was trying to legally but the product, couldn't download it and so asked the credit card company not to pay.

Noone, especially new to Rosity, buys at least 11 hairdos at once. Mine was bought the same day. But I won't outrule the option that someone nicked his parent's creditcard...