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MaxMind Calls [More for the Hosts] quick question
AnthonySmith
Member, Patron Provider
Hi Folks,
SO I have maxmind do all the automated verification logs and as of around 2 - 3 weeks ago I noticed the account was constantly getting topped up, at first I thought it was because of all the €3.00 p/year deals but then on logging in it seems every 2 - 3 orders even though only 1 order is going in to WHMCS maxmind is making 5 - 10 calls to the same number, I have now even had customers complain about it.
I have also ran a controlled test, and verified with 1 order it placed 5 calls at a cost of $0.45 each, back tracking all the logs it looks like around $100 has been wasted.
Contacted MaxMind, they said it was a bot placing orders, I pointed out the obvious and they said it must be someone placing multiple orders manually, I pointed out the obvious again, now it is my code they say.
Spoke to WHMCS they said no, maxmind said no everyone said no meanwhile I am stuck in the middle.
So could someone:
A) double check a few days of maxmind call verification logs to see if this is happening to them.
zip up and email me their maxmind module from whmcs to: i n b o x @ inceptionhosting (,)(,) com
Please and thank you 
Ant.
Comments
We stopped using Maxmind's phone verification after we found that we were usually spending more than $2 to verify a $2/month account.
Why use maxmind's phone system?
Why not?
I have had a lot less trouble with abuse since requiring a phone number to be valid, did you find an alternative?
I have a partially-finished module for WHMCS that interfaced with Tropo.
It gave the user the option of either having their order verified via phone or SMS and then getting instant setup, or the user could opt out of having phone verification, and then we'd manually verify their order whenever one of us got to it, within a few hours.
If you have any interest in it, I could clean it up a bit and send it your way.
What about SMSs?
Because it isn't free. And technically you could be loosing customers that don't receive the call.
Well it has been fairly solid for the last 18 months, it seems to do a good job, I get that it will naturally exclude some people but I would manually verify them myself anyway.
Anyway... this was never meant to be a debate on what is better or what peoples preferences are so for anyone using maxmind have you seen this?
@Damian interested in taking a look yes, never heard of Tropo though.
@Damian +1 for the Tropo app here.
One thing I liked about Maxmind's phone verification is you could set the fraud score level so it would only call if it failed the normal Maxmind check. Is your plugin similar or is it an "all or nothing" approach?
I also see many calls from MaxMind to the same number, however most are not charged (reason: invalid phone number). Interesting how several seconds later the same phone number was valid and the call succeeded.
Made me chuckle
WHMCS Gives you 2,000 free checks /month.
Not phone verification
It was all or nothing, and only for clients without existing active services, which is why the user is given the option of opting out and receiving manual verification instead.
I also considered applying a $0.30 account credit (or some arbitrary value) to compensate them for their minutes/text message/time/etc but never got that far.
I dropped it a few months ago due to a lot of other unrelated issues that needed to be worked, however it appears this month we're the selected host for fraudsters, so I'll probably return to finishing it.
I found my original flowchart:
The original method was going to be this would be run on a hook after the order is paid, before it would be created.
There turned out to be some dain bramage about the way WHMCS handles errors at this point(it's expecting module creation to success at this point, errors were catastrophic), so the process ended up being that all products are set to "do not auto-create", then this function either leaves it as-is in Pending status, or calls WHMCS API to activate the order and create the product.
@Damian why do you credit the client, it's you who is paying the call / SMS? Or at least that's how it works in Europe.
Ah, TIL. In 'murrika, the person answering the call/receiving the SMS gets charged too.
@Damian ah yes, this is the case only in USA i think. Here you don't get charged for receiving calls and SMSes. Only for outgoing.
In most US plans you're billed for minutes used whether you're receiving or calling.
SMS is a little grayer because there are so many "unlimited texting" plans. I think that's the most common plan now. Even those that aren't are so many messages per month, so if the user only uses 50% of his plan in a given month, your SMS didn't really cost him anything.
I was kicked off of my AT&T unlimited text plan for "excessive use". Then had mobile service terminated entirely when I complained.
Wow, are you one of those people that do nothing but text 900 people all day? I never use more than like 100 txts a month, so you must be using text for everything.
I've done 5,000 texts in a month before and T-Mobile didn't seem to mind, you must have really been texting!
heh, I am so old school I don't have a mobile phone and always keep a book full of postage stamps!
texting is evil.
Doesn't sms anymore. It's all facebook, twitter, LINE, Whatsapp, and all the other data sucking apps these days.
I text a bit AND use stamps. In fact, I buy old stamps and put a three or four 10 or 15 cent stamps on envelopes just to be colorful.
I only received one call to my number from MaxMind using local number.
So I guess the problem does not happen in all places.
The problem is, the sound not clear.
5k a month? My sister sends almost 7.5k texts a months, plus a lot of iMessages.
The most I've ever sent (from a phone) is 63 - bet you've got some "Interesting" predictive text results over that 5000 texts
Yikes, how do people find time for that. Society today.. ;p
Well assuming she is awake for 16 hours a day, spends 2 hours eating and doing other misc stuff, she has 14 hours left, lets assume she spends 8 hours working or at college inc travel time, she is left with 6 waking hours.
6 * 30 * 60 * 60
H - D - M - S
If each text takes 30 seconds from that "oh I got a text moment, read text, think up reply, type reply, send, that extra 3 seconds we stare at phone to make sure they go.
That would be 225000 seconds texting each month at 7500 p/m which works out to around 34% of your remaining 'pleasure' time so it is quite possible..... sad but possible
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