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lecha

Is there anything you think you were doing that may be interpreted as fraud?

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Doubt it. We were selling an ebook package (automated digital delivery) about JavaScript performance.

Did you sing the appropriate praises of Chrome with regard to JS performance?

totally OT but thanks for the laugh, I'm in a bad mood and it helped ;)

Is it possible that people paid for the book, and then some kind of technical issue prevented them from being able to download the book? I am also selling digital content and this is my #1 concern regarding payment processing.

Now, I am using PayPal's authorize-and-settle function. I don't settle the transaction until I see in my logs that the user has downloaded the item. If more than a few hours has passed then I email the customer and ask them if they are having some kind of problem with the download.

I had an experience where a customer purchased software (about $400 worth) and then after 2 months claimed they never received the email containing the license keys. I attempted to email them through many various routes (eventually from my own google and ISP accounts, even) but they kept claiming they did not receive any email from me. I don't really know if this is true, but if it is, they have the most aggressive SPAM filtering in the universe since I have never experienced this from any other customer. In the end, they issued a chargeback and told VISA it was fraud, and the payment processor, ShareIT refunded the money. ShareIT is pretty expensive, but I must say they were very good about it - they communicated with me directly (real humans), seemed to understand the situation and have not held it against me in any way (as far as I can tell).

(no particular point to this, just thought the story might be interesting to others.)

I don't believe so, I haven't heard from any users about any issues except with spam blockers. And those folks emailed me, I resent them a download link myself, and then they always wrote back "yeah... it was in spam."

EDIT: And we had maybe 10 orders go through Google Checkout, max (thus the $200ish amount). The other 470 or so went thru PayPal.

Since you only had 10 orders go through Google Checkout, it is possible there were maybe 4 or 5 additional fraudulent orders which raised some red flag in Google's algorithm. Then again, it could actually be a bug in their algorithm

Still, the issue is that Google provides no way of finding out the cause.

Thanks, that is very helpful info.

From selling apps through iPhone app store - there are always people who can't figure something out and instead of contacting the seller they lash out in comments and then leave without a trace. Sometimes they just give you a one-star and leave and you have no idea why. Happens all the time, could have happened to you as well.

Do what briansmith suggests, you just can't be too cautious.

Put the ebook up on Lulu / CreateSpace / Cafepress and keep selling it, at slightly lower margins?

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