Emetrx, ESellerate, RegNow theft possible?

[^cyer]

Hi,

Did anyone have any theft from this companies?

I mean for example, you get an email from customer that has some question and then you find out that the company never showed you that he bought the game.

Thanks for the answers,

cyer

[Sillysoft]

Nothing like this has ever happened to me (I use esellerate). And I have never worried or suspected anything like this.

[arcadetown]

Not sure what you mean by "theft" but we get similar messages. Before we support someone we confirm they made the purchase, if not we ask them to provide proof. Most often the customer made the purchase under a different email address and/or last name. About 90% of time it turns out to be a valid customer but yes we get the occassional obnoxious user who thinks they're cute trying to get a free game.

[^cyer]

arcadetown:
i didn't mean that the "fake" customer will try to get a free copy. What i meant was that somebody buys a game, and then for example RegNow takes all the cash and they never inform you of the product being sold. This way they get all the profit and you never even know what happened. :)

Its a dirty business out there so i thought i someone has some experience with this.

Also how BIG are these companies. For example RegNow, Esellerate? I tend to think that these are BIG ones, however i am really interested in knowing that.

For example i watched some time ago show about PayPal. There was this young guy that was a boss and it appeared that whole business is running from his home! That was really funny to see...but this was years ago maybe company grew up a little :)

[kerchen]

arcadetown:
Also how BIG are these companies. For example RegNow, Esellerate? I tend to think that these are BIG ones, however i am really interested in knowing that.

According to this SIC bio (http://www.sic.org/bios/kiene.htm), MindVision, the parent company of eSellerate, has 43 employees. Digital River, parent company of RegNow, has 480, according to their press kit (http://www.digitalriver.com/corporate/news03_01.shtml). Both companies have been around for several years (and Digital River is publicly traded), so I doubt they're stealing. In fact, reg services really don't need to steal because, kind of like casinos, they have a guaranteed profit. Besides, if they ever did get caught stealing, their legitimate business would dry up instantly. It's just not worth stealing one out of every 100 transactions when they can take 10-20% of all of them.

For example i watched some time ago show about PayPal. There was this young guy that was a boss and it appeared that whole business is running from his home! That was really funny to see...but this was years ago maybe company grew up a little :)
PayPal is owned by eBay now, so I'm sure the situation has changed since then. :) Though I think eBay started out pretty small too.

[Gmicek]

Both companies have been around for several years (and Digital River is publicly traded), so I doubt they're stealing. In fact, reg services really don't need to steal because, kind of like casinos, they have a guaranteed profit.

I'm sorry, but these are a couple of the funniest sentences I've read in a long time, hahaha. I'm not saying either of them are stealing, but I don't see their trade status as making them any more or less likely to steal from you, especially given the events of the last few years. The other part, about guaranteed profit is humerous is because just because they're most likely going to make some money, it doesn't mean it will be enough for them. The casino analogy doesn't work in the end for this exact same reason. Besides the fact that casinos steal all the time that is.

[^cyer]

I agree with GMicek, hehe casino brought a smile on my face too :)

And what about RealArcade, do they give you inside look who bought the game? I mean they could be cheating all the freaking way.

It would also be interesting if someone who changed from RegNow to Esellerates or similar had some drops/ups in the product sell.

[arcadetown]

I personally think taking 20% is stealing but whatever.

I assume there is something to prove the customer made the purchase such as an order confirmation email? If so I'd confront your order processor as that's a big time discrepency and quite serious business.

Check for other possibilities first as it would be bad business practice to cheat. We certainly wouldn't do it here as our authors are our life blood. In fact our authors get independent confirmation emails from each sale so they can also track and feel all warm and cozy.

[Andy]

Looking on results of our sales I can assume that RegNow probably have stolen 99.9% of our orders - our online business could become approriate and profitable as it should be in this case. :D

But NO... :( They are fair and we never catched them on something of this type and I had never heard any reports from another vendors. So, we trust them on 100%.

[kerchen]

The other part, about guaranteed profit is humerous is because just because they're most likely going to make some money, it doesn't mean it will be enough for them. The casino analogy doesn't work in the end for this exact same reason. Besides the fact that casinos steal all the time that is.
I stand by my analogy. Casinos don't need to cheat because they have the odds in their favor (and, in Nevada at least, they have fairly tight regulation). Like any other business, casinos need to keep a good reputation if they want to stay in business. Why risk going out of business (and going to jail) at any moment when you can stay in business forever making guaranteed money? The days of the fixed roulette wheel and loaded dice are long gone (at least in US casinos) because they're not worth the risk.

Similarly, transaction processors like RegNow stand to lose a lot more than they could gain from stealing every nth transaction. Think about it: in order to make it worthwhile for a company the size of Digital River, you'd have to steal a significant number of transactions for, say, a $50 product. At the same time, every stolen transaction increases the likelihood of getting caught because eventually one or more of those 'hidden' users is going to contact the developer for a lost reg code, support, upgrades, etc. How often do developer's friends and family buy the developer's product as a show of support? If Uncle Fred, Little Timmy and sister-in-law Bertha all say they bought your game and you never saw any of them in your transaction reports, it would be pretty easy to figure out where the money went. Besides, taking 10-20% is plenty when you consider that nearly anyone in the US can get their own merchant account with a rate of about 3% + $0.25 per transaction. I don't doubt that every company would like to take a bigger bite of every transaction (for instance, by making an optional '$4.95 download protection charge' the default on every order), but I really doubt they'd resort to committing felonies to do it.

[Jack Norton]

I personally think taking 20% is stealing but whatever.
Indeed. That's why I moved to Plimus (http://www.plimus.com). Only 10% and lot of services, great affiliation system, and lot more.
It is simply ridiculous how they can charge so much when a simple merchant account costs, as said "a rate of about 3% + $0.25 per transaction".
You pay as high as if you were with a publisher without the benefits of a publisher!!! :D

About the stealing I don't think they will do that. Why ruin their reputation when they're already making good money? would be nonsense.

[cliffski]

agreed, I haven't had a full months payment from them yet, but so far, plimus seem superb.

[stan]

At least ShareIt lets you run your keygen on your web site. (it's actually not necessarily a KEY generator, it's just a generator that writes part of the email sent to the customer when s/he buys.)
If you log each keygen access, then there's no way the payment processor could cheat.

[ggambett]

I thought of this and came to the same conclussions Paul did with his Casino analogy, which I think it's appropriate. It's even more safe when you get involved in the order process, as Stan mentioned.

I also recommend Plimus, which I'm using as primary payment processor now. eSellerate is great but many affiliates complain about its affiliate system (and they did some "unpopular" things like the download guarantee). RegNow rates are ridiculous. I keep all of them for affiliate sales anyway, nobody will stop you from doing that.

[Jack Norton]

RegNow rates are ridiculous.
Don't forget also that in case of a refund, they'll keep the 16% "to cover the costs". The bad thing is that you get also lots of refunds from them :(