2021 Black Friday / Cyber Monday Official Megathread + Flash Deals ⚡

ralf

Maybe we will get to 300 pages after all!

FAT32

I am here, still alive

JabJab

@FAT32 said: I am here, still alive

jmgcaguicla

Any oilers who still have fat wallets/CCs not over the limit?

ralf

@FAT32 said:
I am here, still alive

You do sound a bit like GLaDOS though...

Murv

@FAT32 said:
I am here, still alive

If you have trouble sleeping, listen to some class lectures. Works on me each time...

amj

nvme

@FAT32 said:
I am here, still alive

tetech

@PulsedMedia said: @nvme said:

Jack up transfer prices for these BF special deals. This way, people will buy only if they need to keep it. Also, providers get compensated, since some of them have offered rock bottom prices.

Interesting, some providers charge for that?

From my observation (far from complete or scientific!) there are a combination of approaches. Some providers do charge a fee (either to the transferor or transferee). Some prohibit transfers either entirely or for some period of time. Some only permit transfers to an account which already has a functional service for X months. Some impose bureaucratic requirements (like a copy of ID card) which is a burden (it seems MJJs in particular object to this).

There are probably a lot of other creative approaches, e.g. bring the due date forward by two months if the server is transferred, which is a de facto fee.

As my two cents, I think the problems mostly come when providers change transfer rules after the sale. Good to think about it in advance and have some type of check-box acknowledgement. For BF specials I'd personally support a strict "no refunds unless it is the provider's error" with people who do chargebacks on BF specials to be circulated among providers for complete blacklisting.

Yeah, there will be people who complain that an IP is blocked, speed is too low, latency poor, FOMO, buyer's remorse etc. but when offers are crazy, I think that buyers should be forced to bear that risk - if they don't like it, then buy at a higher rate that brings a refund privilege. I don't see why other buyers who are willing to take on the risk need to be penalized by jacking the prices up.

Sorry for my longest post in a while.

PulsedMedia

@dTQzBen8 said:

@PulsedMedia said:
We had a lot of refunds too, and a lot of "reservations".

Similar numbers as @Shakib too, but since we are from Finland quite certain our fees were even higher as anything essentially is abroad and goes by the hidden higher trx fees. Sucks. Looks like trx fees have also increased, saw some had very high for the transaction sizes.

Then indeed like someone said, all that time spent processing and checking things as well.

Oh well, that just goes with the territory of special deals etc.

Feel sad for you. For BF/CM sales providers should consider "No refunds" or asking for fees. Otherwise we won't have these legendary deals.

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

@ralf said: I couldn't help but think at least some of the people were just taking advantage of the provider going above and beyond.

There are deals, there are people who try to take advantage. Also sadly a lot of people seem to think that any and all companies and entrepreneurs are scum and should be taken advantage of or abused. Surprisingly many. Even in real life in a socialistic country like mine entrepreneurs are absolutely hated by large number of people, and have a mentality that it's OK to cheat and abuse companies and their owners.

@JabJab said:
Kinda interested if @PulsedMedia @Shakib would start refunding money minus the fee (let's say 5%?) how many of those would end as chargebacks and generate even more manual work / fees. This is very tricky topic and going straight out "NO REFUND POLICY" is probably the best way - you can still do it for manual coupons fuckups if people nice... but for normal orders? Hell no.

Would be too much work. For some 20€ deal the fees are probably 7.5% or so, won't get me even half a cup of coffee. One public outcry and it would wipe out that fee from 100 of the cases.

Just not worth it.

bulbasaur

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

PulsedMedia

@tetech said:

@PulsedMedia said: @nvme said:

Jack up transfer prices for these BF special deals. This way, people will buy only if they need to keep it. Also, providers get compensated, since some of them have offered rock bottom prices.

Interesting, some providers charge for that?

From my observation (far from complete or scientific!) there are a combination of approaches. Some providers do charge a fee (either to the transferor or transferee). Some prohibit transfers either entirely or for some period of time. Some only permit transfers to an account which already has a functional service for X months. Some impose bureaucratic requirements (like a copy of ID card) which is a burden (it seems MJJs in particular object to this).

There are probably a lot of other creative approaches, e.g. bring the due date forward by two months if the server is transferred, which is a de facto fee.

As my two cents, I think the problems mostly come when providers change transfer rules after the sale. Good to think about it in advance and have some type of check-box acknowledgement. For BF specials I'd personally support a strict "no refunds unless it is the provider's error" with people who do chargebacks on BF specials to be circulated among providers for complete blacklisting.

Yeah, there will be people who complain that an IP is blocked, speed is too low, latency poor, FOMO, buyer's remorse etc. but when offers are crazy, I think that buyers should be forced to bear that risk - if they don't like it, then buy at a higher rate that brings a refund privilege. I don't see why other buyers who are willing to take on the risk need to be penalized by jacking the prices up.

Sorry for my longest post in a while.

Interesting.

The full on no refunds, and no transfers until 3months is up might be something which might work for most, but there will be some who will lash out from it. Handling disputes, chargebacks etc. is also a complete PITA.

Ultimately, ALL customers of a provider pay together all these fees in the form of ever so slightly higher prices or requirements.

I have to finally admit, i have no idea what MJJ means. Don't frequent here that often.

And i agree that for crazy deals buyer's should carry part of the risk like you say, but there will be too many who will lash out from such rules. There are sadly always people who think they are above the rules, and rules do not apply to them. Just saying that i agree with out is a bit risky for us as provider, someone will definitively take that out of context and cause a fuss. Or i am just way too used to reddit being the ....pool it is (albeit certain subreddit is much nicer now since it had mod change)

tetech

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

One thing HostHatch does seem to do pretty routinely is say "here's a refund of all your payments, we don't think it is going to work out having you as a customer".

ralf

@tetech said:
One thing HostHatch does seem to do pretty routinely is say "here's a refund of all your payments, we don't think it is going to work out having you as a customer".

That's the best thing you can do with a customer who could potentially put off many, many more customers. Far better to take a smallish hit and hope they'll just go away quietly.

PulsedMedia

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

not country specific really (except the reserve no pay until resold scam), and WHMCS has an option to limit one use per account

bulbasaur

@tetech said:

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

One thing HostHatch does seem to do pretty routinely is say "here's a refund of all your payments, we don't think it is going to work out having you as a customer".

I'd love to read up more, have a link? Or was this your experience when ordering services from them?

bulbasaur

@PulsedMedia said:

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

not country specific really (except the reserve no pay until resold scam), and WHMCS has an option to limit one use per account

Maybe try to reduce the the amount of time a certain product can be reserved too to no more than 15 minutes. I think I'm pretty disorganized, yet can complete a transaction within 5-10 minutes of ordering a service.

PulsedMedia

@ralf said:

@tetech said:
One thing HostHatch does seem to do pretty routinely is say "here's a refund of all your payments, we don't think it is going to work out having you as a customer".

That's the best thing you can do with a customer who could potentially put off many, many more customers. Far better to take a smallish hit and hope they'll just go away quietly.

and this is exactly how some people try to defraud companies. We have received even completely shameless blackmail: "Give me free service or i will hurt your reputation on most popular forums".

There are also many forms of defrauding a company, sometimes people don't even realize that. For example; on our auctions person buys service at price of 5.00€, then 10 days later it is at 4.80€ buys that too, then asks for refund on the first one. One like that just went ballistic on tickets as i raised the second purchase renewal price to the initial one, allowed the refund too. Kept going ballistic so added a 5€ service fee to next invoice -- in the hopes he just cancels and don't come back OR stops trying to defraud us and waste our time. The time he has wasted is worth more than many months of his service ffs.

I have no idea is that the right way to do it, but imho slapping an extra fee like a fine is better than outright cancelling their service and not giving the user the choice even. I think that's the softest way we can do say "Either stop defrauding us, or go away"

PulsedMedia

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

not country specific really (except the reserve no pay until resold scam), and WHMCS has an option to limit one use per account

Maybe try to reduce the the amount of time a certain product can be reserved too to no more than 15 minutes. I think I'm pretty disorganized, yet can complete a transaction within 5-10 minutes of ordering a service.

Sold out within a minute or two when those things happened

dTQzBen8

@ralf said:

@DP said:
Just sounds like a bunch of people were probably trying their luck, happily clicking, missing the coupon, knew it wasn't the discounted/promotional price but still paid for it, presumably to "secure" the order then maybe try to work out something out later with the provider

Yeah, there was one specific deal, I can't remember which, but the provider said something about sorting one guy out who'd got to the end of the payment thing and the discount was taken away. Suddenly 10 more people mysteriously had exactly the same problem, and like a star, the provider gave them all the deal even though only a few (maybe even one, I can't remember) was even offered originally. I couldn't help but think at least some of the people were just taking advantage of the provider going above and beyond.

It is. I felt sorry because I'm so obsessed of that deal, it may harm people and provider. I do wish they sort things up and give the only order according to system record or transfer.

@ralf said:

@JabJab said:
... but for normal orders? Hell no.

A lot of people were complaining that the coupon codes just disappeared from their orders after it'd already been confirmed. In these cases, it'd probably be quite hard to sort out who had made a genuine mistake and who was trying to play the system.

I think the real issue is that most people would buy something they don't really need if it's on a special offer, but if they have to pay the full price, their sense prevails and they realise that they don't actually need it after all.

If you accidentally buy something at full price, believing it to be cheaper, then even if the seller doesn't offer a refund, the credit card company would probably allow a chargeback, which would probably cause even more hassle for the seller as they're not initiating the refund.

Sales was designed to arouse people buying things. If you can stop it, you will be the real winner, sellers will get upset.

My point is: if you do generate an invoice with full price, and you can't afford it(like out of
budget), you could just don't pay. But if you proceed with whatever reason and ask for refund afterwards, you should be responsible for it.

PulsedMedia

lol was just about to say that we still have something leftover from BF/CM, how about new special.

But due to 2 servers having drives failed in the past 24hrs, alas we do not. (Damn we've had many drive failures in the past month, statistics! Had 6months of almost zero failures and now it seems catching up to the mean!) We literally sold out of everything we dare to sell. Always have a little bit of margin in case of server failures.

Oh well, within a week or so adding ~500TB worth probs.

tetech

@stevewatson301 said:

@tetech said:

@stevewatson301 said:

@PulsedMedia said:

There will be shitstorm if you ask for fees or have specials no refunds policy. Not worth the effort imho.

Forgot the class who also took multiple specials, then refunded those which they liked the least. That sucks majorly, as ultimately we need to make a profit.

If this is a country specific problem, why not restrict that country from transactions like Inceptionhosting does?

In addition, you may also want to consider cancelling orders from the same account that make use of the same promotion for multiple products.

One thing HostHatch does seem to do pretty routinely is say "here's a refund of all your payments, we don't think it is going to work out having you as a customer".

I'd love to read up more, have a link? Or was this your experience when ordering services from them?

Just from recollection, possibly imperfect. Can probably get the sentiment from a search, e.g.

https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3172664#Comment_3172664

https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3172647#Comment_3172647

https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3179660#Comment_3179660

shaolefen

Not much to say, just sticking around till the thread hits 300. I've read LEB/LET for years, but this is my first time taking part in an event. I didn't get anything epic, but it was still fun. Thanks to @FAT32 and everyone else for their volunteer work. Here's a genuine question from a noob that will let you tell us why you work so hard for so little reward: Why?

Murv

@stevewatson301 said: why not restrict that country

I don't think that's a nice thing to do only because of a few bad apples...

I'm saying this as someone who has gotten rejected many times based on my nationality, whether that's because of the laws or some kind of prejudice against people from my country.

Funny thing I actually remember some people even freaking out after they hear where I'm from.
I mean I didn't choose my birthplace and my country does not represent me. I'm just an innocent weeb...

FAT32

@PulsedMedia said:
lol was just about to say that we still have something leftover from BF/CM, how about new special.

DID I HEAR NEW SPECIAL!? MAYBE SOME 1 EUR/TB/MONTH !?

Umm wait why am I still here.

nvme

@PulsedMedia said: lol was just about to say that we still have something leftover from BF/CM, how about new special.

>

ralf

@PulsedMedia said:
For example; on our auctions person buys service at price of 5.00€, then 10 days later it is at 4.80€ buys that too, then asks for refund on the first one.

It seems for companies like yours, actually maybe the simplest thing you can do is just let them have that refund (of course, ignoring the cost of the fees for doing that).

If they're prepared to change service for the sake of €0.20, meaning new box, new IP address, lots of hassle transferring their stuff to the new box, then either everything that's on the old service is completely throwaway, or they don't value their own time, so expecting them to value yours is never going to happen.

But you could count the data transfer between the two boxes in their bandwidth allowance, which would hopefully discourage people just hopping from one server to another. [EDIT: I've just looked, using 5TB of their 50TB allowance won't make much impact, I guess. But may still hold true for the smaller packages.]

And actually, if someone has a second server and wants credit, it's a bit weird as they presumably must like your service. So, maybe you can just default to giving them credit against the other server in that case and only refund if they specifically request it be returned to the original payment method.

default

@FAT32 said:

@PulsedMedia said:
lol was just about to say that we still have something leftover from BF/CM, how about new special.

DID I HEAR NEW SPECIAL!? MAYBE SOME 1 EUR/TB/MONTH !?

Umm wait why am I still here.

You are still here because you love this community, just like everybody does and it's here.

zxrlha

Disallow transfer cannot stop some MJJs, because they just sell the whole account instead of transfer.

Murv

Why is there so much drama now? This is supposed to be the after-party!