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How many of you guys would be willing to confirm their street address?
I am currently working on some cool "Welcome abord"-cards/surprise boxes for Elbaf-Hosting with a designer friend and looking to ship these out with some german surprise candy (usually chocolate). Ideally every new customer with atleast one service worth more than 10€/year will be able to get one (once it's all prepared).
Now I'm not quite sure how many customer usually enter their genuine street address (I don't usually check) but how would you like to be approached when it comes to that as I wouldn't want to sent gifts into Nirvana. Would you be okay if inquired per ticket/e-mail after signup to confirm your address in case you would like a welcome surprise? :P
Comments
I don't like lying when I enter a contract.
So I do give my address if it is required.
Pretty much what @hammer said.
If you want to validate addresses, you can dump them into google maps. If it comes up with an actual house / deliverable address, then it's probably legit. If it comes up as a field in the middle of nowhere, welp.
I have had customers with "Rainbow Boulevard 999" and I'm not sure if it was @WSS but yeah, just hinting that some addresses may be doubted.
Nah that's not him his is 666 Seventh Circle.
If I sign up to a service I use my real address; then again; I only sign up to services that I feel are somewhat well-known and/or have a track record behind them in the first place.
LET for example; MXRoute, Inception Hosting, BuyVM/FT, etc (no summer host shit ran by a 12 year old).
Heyyy
That's my address. I'm gonna sue you for doxing!
8 Mile
Detroit, MI
Shiiiiiiiiiiit. I accidentally auto filled my address into Treudler’s sign up form
It really depends on the host.
I always provide correct details with regard to hosting.
That said ...
When I created a US iTunes account I actually made a point of looking at Google Maps to find a legit address & zipcode.
Anyway, that sounds like a great idea. A bit of fun.
Thanks for the input mate!
What sort of chocolate are you thinking about? Ritter? (One of the current specials with white chocolate and lemon wafer biscuit is surprisingly yummy)
Yeah Ritter seems like the classic choice :P Didnt decide on a sorts yet :P
I follow the principle of providing the minimum amount of information necessary to do what's necessary. There's no reason why a hosting company needs to know my home address. I get that billing needs it, and Maxmind can get narky at times, but that just means that I need to make up an address to satisfy the two. Usually I select a street and make up a number somewhere in my vicinity - by chance, it's likely the address is valid, just not mine.
For ordering stuff online, I'll provide an address, although, again, not my home address (I usually have stuff delivered to the local post office; since I'm never at home when deliveries arrive, they end up at the post office anyway, so may as well save a postman some effort and avoid giving out details to random online stores).
Providing less details means better privacy, particularly if the host decides to sell their customer details, or the database gets hacked and details become available to anyone interested.
@Ympker
You are too nice. They aren't paying you enough to deliver chocolates. If they were giving you 1000's of dollars a year then well you better give them chocolates.
How can this chocoholic get on this deal?
@jarland
Does DO give chocolates to big customers? Is that the secret?
Well, I do not only cater to cheapskates
And once the account pays a certain amount per year it may very well work out :P Perhaps that 10€/year limit for receiving the gift was set too low but it's all in the planning stage still so yeah.
Once everything has been decided and prepared I will let you know which deals qualify
@xyz Thanks for the Input. Another reason which I can understand to some degree and which would lead to sending the package to Nirvana. Thanks for pointing this out.
For physical goods, yes.
If ID and contact info like email and tel is correct, there is really no need to give out the address.
Greeting cards? let's save some energy and forest.
Hetzner's email is nice:
Thanks for all the feedback so far!
Seems my doubt on the integrity of customers street addresses was not coming from nowhere.
We've learned that
a) People acctually see their privacy as a reason not to give a correct address for services where usually no physical goods are being delivered.
b) People not only seem to use fake addresses at times but also random existing addresses from a certain city/state to sign up.
Nothing is meant as an offense but I hope this now to some extent shows why I came up with this question in the first place. Now the reason why providers (atleast in Germany) may need your real address is to send you legal letters if something goes wrong or in my case sweet chocolate :P But yeah just clarifying not pointing any fingers here.
I maintain a P.O. box that I generally use for services where I'm not expecting to receive any physical goods. Technically it is valid and you could send me something, but I don't risk leaking my home address when WHMCS gets hacked for the 8th time or whatever.
Edit: I use the P.O. box for other shit too like IRL spam aka when you sign up for like shop loyalty cards and such.
For company address or account:
People should give real legit address despite which country it belongs to.
For personal account:
Depends on trustworthiness, provide exact info or just partial address. Which can lead for more fulfilling thereafter.
Lying or faking address isn't nice for either party. No fun yet more problems later on where none can help. Your credit card number, crypto wallet, email account are more important at this point of time, not street address.
Just a FYI. Bear in mind that street address is not always relevant for shipping. In my case the box number is what's needed and street address is only good for property tax purposes.
In any case, I'll gladly give out either. In fact I put both online permanently along with my telephone number.
If I'm happy with the provider and it's a paid service I will normally give my address.
If it's someone buying/coming to look at something from the internet I will usually give them the address of the pub nearby lol, and meet there.
I always provide an address that something can be physically delivered to, even if it’s not my actual home address.
That is a good strategy, giving the one for the post office. My goods automaticly get moved to that place if nobody is home.
That’s not what I meant, I wouldn’t advocate providing an address that I haven’t been authorised to use.
I’m thinking more like a service such as Clevvermail.
@Nekki Let's assume that's what he meant.
The situation he described is what happens by default if there’s no-one home for a delivery (at least in the UK), but you can’t just use the office as a postal address.
@Ympker
Interesting idea. In Canada, our postal service has an online tool that allows you to validate addresses, so usually you can be sure beforehand if an address is valid or not here.
But yeah, I'd say although it's an expensive idea, it could bring you some good business. I'd be more than happy to give my address if the person/company is reputable and actually needs my address.
Edit: Did a cost lookup, it'll set you back 3.70 euros (VAT is exempted apparently) for DHL:
Not like you're shipping an entire box of chocolates, so the size I assumed is likely the cost of postage on top of the cost of the stuff inside the parcel.
You're tossing out a good portion of your profit here -- perhaps a 15-20 euro minimum spend is an order?
Thanks for your feedback
That's why it's all still in the planning but fact is Im really fond of that idea and just gonna settle on a minimum amount the customer would have spent on my Services already or just being a customer of my regular services at 5-10€/mo+ :P
@Nekki
Happens in at least some places in Canada also.
If you aren't present mail man takes the package to nearest post office (which just so happens to be in the drug store).
That is reason number two of why I settled on going to the nearest Apple store and getting a Mac.
I did not know of any nearby professional laptop store and I was scared of ordering $2000+ laptop and having it lost in mail.