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For what it's worth, we've seen that situation from the other side as well. A customer who subscribes with us wants to update their payment details, but in fact

For what it's worth, we've seen that situation from the other side as well. A customer who subscribes with us wants to update their payment details, but in fact creates a new account with a different ID, new card, etc. They don't do anything to close down their old account, we have no way to know that john.smith@example.com is the same as j.smith.1980@example.com and we don't even see their card details, and so of course our system will charge both of them as if they were two different customers. Sometimes customers do get confused by the automatic update mechanisms for card details, but most of the time it seems to be a useful facility that saves hassle for our subscribers and avoids unintended cancellations. I do think the card companies should be much more transparent with both cardholders and merchants about how their systems actually work, though. We've had occasions where something unexpected has happened, a customer has contacted us to ask what is going on, and all we could do was contact our card payment service to ask them because we had no idea either.

inetknght 8y ago
What you're saying sounds like you're able to bill a card without being required to verify who you're billing. Surely there's a law against that?
- Silhouette 8y ago
  In both cases we're talking about a customer who has deliberately signed up and provided us with their contact and payment details. It just happens to be the same customer twice, but providing different details so we can't automatically determine that they're the same person. In an ideal world, perhaps we would verify exactly who each customer is for legal purposes, but in reality there's no good way to do that, so we accept a fraud risk that is small in practice in return for streamlining the process for both ourselves and our customers. There are systems that will shift that liability if you go through additional authorisation checks at purchase time (and in Europe, use of these systems will become mandatory in most cases later this year) but it is not clear that these are actually helpful, in that they may do more harm than good. As for having a law against anything, I don't see how this is much different to when I buy my shopping from a grocery store and all I need to provide for payment is my card and PIN (and not even the PIN for most low-value transactions these days). Or of course I can pay completely anonymously using cash.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    > In both cases we're talking about a customer who has deliberately signed up and provided us with their contact and payment details. It just happens to be the same customer twice, but providing different details so we can't automatically determine that they're the same person. Isn't a user required to enter their name and address information for you to be able to charge the card? Doesn't that have to match the card? > I don't see how this is much different to when I buy my shopping from a grocery store and all I need to provide for payment is my card and PIN (and not even the PIN for most low-value transactions these days). Your card provides name and address information. PIN provides "security" (for some definitions of security...). > Or of course I can pay completely anonymously using cash. If a user is somehow paying for services with cash online... doesn't that rather necessitate that they can't enroll in automatic billing? So, how does that have anything to do with the topic at hand: automatically billing against cards which are no longer valid.
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      Isn't a user required to enter their name and address information for you to be able to charge the card? Doesn't that have to match the card? No and no. There is a certain amount of basic checking of some parts of an address that can optionally be done. It's nothing like as comprehensive as you seem to be expecting, though. Your card provides name and address information. Not necessarily, at least not that the merchant can see in full. Again, just because the card issuer has such information, that doesn't mean the merchant necessarily does. If a user is somehow paying for services with cash online... doesn't that rather necessitate that they can't enroll in automatic billing? So, how does that have anything to do with the topic at hand: automatically billing against cards which are no longer valid. The point was that you don't necessarily have to know someone's identity definitively to trade with them lawfully.

inetknght 8y ago

What you're saying sounds like you're able to bill a card without being required to verify who you're billing. Surely there's a law against that?

Silhouette 8y ago
In both cases we're talking about a customer who has deliberately signed up and provided us with their contact and payment details. It just happens to be the same customer twice, but providing different details so we can't automatically determine that they're the same person. In an ideal world, perhaps we would verify exactly who each customer is for legal purposes, but in reality there's no good way to do that, so we accept a fraud risk that is small in practice in return for streamlining the process for both ourselves and our customers. There are systems that will shift that liability if you go through additional authorisation checks at purchase time (and in Europe, use of these systems will become mandatory in most cases later this year) but it is not clear that these are actually helpful, in that they may do more harm than good. As for having a law against anything, I don't see how this is much different to when I buy my shopping from a grocery store and all I need to provide for payment is my card and PIN (and not even the PIN for most low-value transactions these days). Or of course I can pay completely anonymously using cash.
- inetknght 8y ago
  > In both cases we're talking about a customer who has deliberately signed up and provided us with their contact and payment details. It just happens to be the same customer twice, but providing different details so we can't automatically determine that they're the same person. Isn't a user required to enter their name and address information for you to be able to charge the card? Doesn't that have to match the card? > I don't see how this is much different to when I buy my shopping from a grocery store and all I need to provide for payment is my card and PIN (and not even the PIN for most low-value transactions these days). Your card provides name and address information. PIN provides "security" (for some definitions of security...). > Or of course I can pay completely anonymously using cash. If a user is somehow paying for services with cash online... doesn't that rather necessitate that they can't enroll in automatic billing? So, how does that have anything to do with the topic at hand: automatically billing against cards which are no longer valid.
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    Isn't a user required to enter their name and address information for you to be able to charge the card? Doesn't that have to match the card? No and no. There is a certain amount of basic checking of some parts of an address that can optionally be done. It's nothing like as comprehensive as you seem to be expecting, though. Your card provides name and address information. Not necessarily, at least not that the merchant can see in full. Again, just because the card issuer has such information, that doesn't mean the merchant necessarily does. If a user is somehow paying for services with cash online... doesn't that rather necessitate that they can't enroll in automatic billing? So, how does that have anything to do with the topic at hand: automatically billing against cards which are no longer valid. The point was that you don't necessarily have to know someone's identity definitively to trade with them lawfully.