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Cheated. | Forum

Topic location: Forum home » Support » Oxwall Store
Patricia Zorrilla Leader
Patricia Zorrilla May 8 '19

It has already happened twice.

Someone buys a plugin, downloads it and then goes to PayPal and claims his money with the reason "they have bought it without my permission".

What kind of motive is this?

PayPal immediately returns the money.

The last case:

[ *** removed by forum moderator *** ]

For 30 misables dollars of a plugin ...

PayPal does not provide any protection to the seller and the OxWall licensing system is child-friendly.

Then we are all surprised that there are no plugin updates, that developers abandon OxWall.

I am very, very angry.


The Forum post is edited by Oxwall Germany May 19 '19
ArtMedia
ArtMedia May 8 '19
I have this situations too, this is risk this business, paypal always refund money, they probably don't read proofs which i send them ;)
Blaire
Blaire May 8 '19
I think PayPal believes all sellers are big businesses and this is a part of overhead or expected business loss. They do not see that you only make a few sells and not many, many sells. It's unfortunate.

I do not think they understand "code". That somebody can copy the code to reuse it after refund. I do not know this all, I do not create codes. I buy many here because I do not have knowledge to make these things. Maybe I am wrong.

So...

Can you remove a License key from use? Deactivate it?

I am sorry this happens to good developers :(
Patricia Zorrilla Leader
Patricia Zorrilla May 9 '19

Yes, of course I eliminated the license.

But there are many people who know computers ... and you already have the source code.

I wonder if your skadate will have paid in the same way.

I have many plugins half done.

It takes a long time to make them, try them, you barely sell anything, you have to pay the PayPal commission, the taxes of your country, the rates of converting USD to EUR. And those who buy do not comment on "review" of the plugins even if you have customized them for free, they are happy and you have fixed CSS and other things for your site.

I do not live of this, it is only a hobby, but this discourages a lot.

You can not do anything, you can keep buying. PayPal does not block you, OxWall does not block you, nor can I block you.


dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
I have posted before about this situation but after that post i did win my case against them and got my money back.   Here are some tips that might help you do better at holding on to your hard earned dollars.  


Disclaimer:  Some of this is NOT fact and i have nothing in writing to support some of my thoughts here.  However, as of now i have a spotless record and i have won 100% of my paypal cases so far and i have been with paypal for approx 10 years now.   And that says something about my ability to give advice on this.   But like i said some of this is gut feeling and some of this is fact.


I hear all these stories about paypal this and paypal that, but paypal has been very good to me and has had my back on any case against me for many years now. I am very happy with thier service. 


The first rule is - document document document.   This is the reason that it is important to do your support on the oxwall site and not some other environment. It may not seem like much but it helps support your cause when paypal can see the support request and read it on the same site as the customer puchased it.   Having customers go to some other environment for support can hurt your cause. 


Make sure in your initial support conversations that you ask alot of questions, that way you can share that data with paypal if something should go south.  


You have to do the paypal claim forms correctly, you have to share documents, you have to tell them that this is a non tangible product and that the customer already has the product and there is no way to retrieve or get back the product from the customer.  


You also have to stick to the facts, you cant lose your cool and tell paypal about how the customer yelled at you and how they made you mad, paypal does not care about that.  They only care about the facts of the case. 


Act like a business, i see so many people on the paypal forums complaining about losing paypal cases and these merchants do not even present themselves as educated business people.   If you cant explain what happened using logic and professional terms and without personally attacking the customer you will never win a case.  Its the same as if you were going to court, you have to take the facts with you, present the facts and convince the judge, that is how it is done. 


I had someone one time try just what you talk about here, they bought it and then they claimed we never got authorization for it.  But yet i had documents that showed that the customer was working with me on a support issue that same day and so of course he authorized it.  I won that case.  


Another customer used their debit card and then said someone stole the card, paypal took the money back but i convinced them to go after the bank and make the bank prove to us that the card was stolen.  It took about 3 months, but with my documents and my facts and talking to them as a business person and not a pissed off merchant, i got my money back on that one too. The bank finally made the customer pay the sale on the card.  


Also it is my belief that the longer you are in business the better that paypal can assist you.  Remember that if your just starting out in business and you dont have that many sales how is paypal going to know what your doing.  However, if you are like me and you have sold a ton of products over the years and never have any complaints paypal can see that over time and they will most likely take your side.  


You need to know that the last time i looked paypal does NOT offer customer protection for non tangible products (like software)  so the customer has no leg to stand on really unless they can prove you have been negligent.  


Also it is very very important that you get a paypal business account. Using a personal account for business does not help your cause but having a business account will give you some protection at paypal.  


One of my customers could not get FFMPEG to install, no matter what they tried they could not get it done, there was something with his server or his plan that did not allow it.  Anyway round and round and the customer finally called me every name in the book even though it was not my fault, they cussed me out they called me horrible names, they insulted my profession, then they tried to get their money back via paypal.  And all the time i treated the customer like a professional would.  After 20 days i won that case and the customer swore they would never use my product.  I left the key in tact anyway.  A year goes by and one day the customer writes me back and thanks me for my wonderful product and that they finally found the issue with the server, he thanked me for my great patience and understanding. And he apologized for everything he ever said bad about me.  We now have a great dev to client relationship.    


Dont give up, keep at it, keep being professional and keep putting your best foot forward.  Yes there will be those who try to scam you, its just the way the world is today.  However, if you follow what i said here you will have a leg up and be able to win some of those cases.  


I hope this helps... 


Dave 



The Forum post is edited by dave May 9 '19
AppXprt
AppXprt May 9 '19
Post the names of the users that have done this here...

Paul has done this to me after a lot of work.


That's the nature of PHP though, its all open source...

The Forum post is edited by AppXprt May 9 '19
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
Any name shame list started would be shut down and removed, they dont want to name shame here. Its seen as unprofessional. 
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
Ghost your looking at the wrong end of the process, verified profiles wont solve this issue because the process being attacked is paypal or their credit card which has nothing to do with verified profiles in oxwall. 


Now verified profiles will solve some issues but not this one. 

Patricia Zorrilla Leader
Patricia Zorrilla May 9 '19

A blacklist of scammers based on your email in PayPal would suffice. It is not necessary to publish the email but to block access to the store so that you can not continue buying. The developers can provide the screenshots of PayPal as proof and these people a message like "You do not have access to the OxWall store because you have a pending dispute with an OxWall developer." Contact blablabla "

That way I would not have access to new plugins, updates or anything other than defending their position.

What I do not believe is that the OxWall team has an interest neither in this, nor in publishing updates or in anything, they have abandoned us.


ArtMedia
ArtMedia May 9 '19

Quote from AppXprt 

Paul has done this to me after a lot of work.

and violate OSCL license, he used my plugin on two sites, he cant start dispute via paypal, because he buy license more than year ago, but when i noticed that he using plugin on two sites, i write to him to buy additional license, because he using my plugin for more than one year on second site, if not, then i remove his license key. He dont buy license, i remove license key, and then he complains to Oxwall Team that i removed his license key. They wanted from me to restore his license key, but i dont agreed, he violated OSCL license and they wanted from me to restore his license key ;) because he promised not violate OSCL license again.


Then i was frustrated, i wanted stop develop plugins for oxwall, but there are still good clients as Ghost, Blaire, gami, which appreciate my work



dave Leader
dave May 9 '19

Patricia, the problem with blacklists is that they get so huge that they become unmanagable or they do not get updated to take people off of them and it causes more of a headache than its worth. 



ArtMedia, it is commonly accepted that as long as the domains are on the same IP that users can use our plugins on any site they want (which shares that same ip), this has been the case and accepted practice for many years.    If both of your customers sites were using the same IP then that is acceptable per the license and you might consider granting him a key for that purpose. 


However, clients must buy additional licenses for plugins if installed on domains that do not share the same IP. 


And to do that they need to have multiple oxwall accounts, one for one site ip and another for the other site ip.  That is how it is done. 


I hope that helps.. 

The Forum post is edited by dave May 9 '19
ArtMedia
ArtMedia May 9 '19

No, one license = one domain, not IP address


This commercial software is intended to be used with Oxwall Free Community Software on one domain/website. To use this piece of software on additional websites/domains The User needs to purchase additional licenses.


And in my case, i writing about two separate oxwall installations to two domains, if somebody have one oxwall installation and many domains, which pointing this oxwall installation, then i dont have any problems


The Forum post is edited by ArtMedia May 9 '19
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
Yes sir i understand what it says, but that has not been the practice for many years.  If you are going to hold people accountable to that then all it will do is cost you more sales because if an admin has several sites they will not purchase multiple copies and if you fight with them you will lose the client.   


So what is better, to bend the rule alittle bit and be flexible and let them use it on the same IP or to be hard core and upset the client and lose future sales for other plugins.  


My opinion is let them have their duplicate IP installs, if it leads to more sales for other domains or a referral to another client then you win.   That is how i see it. 

ArtMedia
ArtMedia May 9 '19
but this isn't fair for eg. Ghost, who buy licenses separatelly for his sites, if you accept this practise, this is your decision. I don't allow for this.
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19

Here is why i say this, it has been proven in business marketing that if you give a customer two options, one cheaper and one more expensive, they may take the cheaper version at first. But eventually they will buy the more expensive version.  


What i mean by this is if you give them the option to use the plugin on the same IP multiple times then you have given them the less expensive option and they feel that you are working with them for their success.  And when the time comes for them to start another site on another IP you will most likely get the sale for a new license because they know they can use the same IP but choose not to because they feel they have the choice in the matter, and you have earned their respect.


However, if you only give them one choice they will fight you with every fiber in their body any time they can, that is the nature of people.  They want to feel as if you are a partner in their business not just a supplier.  It is all part of long term thinking, not short term success...  :)


Of course you can do as you like and so can i, but i feel mine is the better long term success process. 



The Forum post is edited by dave May 9 '19
JB TECH
JB TECH May 9 '19

If someone installs a plugin on another IP that isn't the one currently tied to the license, it sees this and hits the user with an invalid license code. So regardless, the only way they could do multiple installs of one license on different IPs is by nulling the plugin, which is against many terms and therefor an illegal practice by the customer. It's also safe to assume that a second IP is a new domain anyways, so they should purchase a separate license. 


If a customer unrightfully claims for money back, you need to handle claims with PayPal. You have the proof this is a software product. You also, as a developer and business, need to setup your own licensing terms and payment policy, for further protection from such practices.

dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
JB +1  


I am curious how you feel about customers installing multple oxwall sites under the same ip and using the same purchased plugins for those.  Regardless if oxwall ties the plugin to one IP, do you feel they need to purchase multiple licenses for each install under the same IP?

ArtMedia
ArtMedia May 9 '19
dave, if he wanted using plugin on other site, they always can write to me for discount, but when they dont to this and using plugin on two sites, then they violate OSCL license and there no excuses
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
ArtMedia i dont mean it as an excuse, sometimes in business you have to be alittle flexible for the better big picture, that is all i am saying.   Personally i think if you hold them to that and are not flexible you will lose more clients than you gain, but that is just my opinion i have no facts that support that. 
dave Leader
dave May 9 '19
When i worked in the corp sales world our company used what they called loss-leaders, they were give a ways, food, movie tickets, all kinds of other stuff.   One item in particular was donuts, as manager it was my job every friday to go around to all our clients offices and drop off a huge box of donuts to them as a way of saying thanks for the business. 


So we lost money on the donuts and the company as a whole paid millions of dollars every year just on donuts alone.  But we made all that money back 10x over with new sales by referrals from doing that.  


You can look at the IP deal as a loss-leader as well.  You can tell customers that yes the license says you need another license but i am willing to work with you and help you get started and so i will be flexible on that one.  Then when the time comes that the client can refer someone to you, they will.    Business is not a us against them deal, its all of us dev and client working together for a common cause. 


I am not trying to tell anyone how to run their business, i am simply  trying to say that just as in life, in business also you have to pick your fights, and IMO this is not a fight you can come out a winner long term. 

The Forum post is edited by dave May 9 '19
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