9 ms·

Having run a B2C business with recurring monthly payments around $15, I assure you that fraud goes UP with lower payment amounts. You preferentially attract the

Having run a B2C business with recurring monthly payments around $15, I assure you that fraud goes UP with lower payment amounts. You preferentially attract the worst possible customers who bank with the lowest common denominator banks and they charge back like crazy. Some choice moments: "Please keep my service on, I only charged back because I needed to make rent this month", "I know that wasn't my card, but that b---- owes me money." And it's hard to fire these customers because they come back with a different card and fake names. They don't care that they're committing fraud; no one will prosecute them for $10 here, $20 there. The real promise of crypto is to provide a system with 0% low level fraud like this.

cowtools 4y ago
Well, in crypto there's still non-zero amounts of fraud if the merchant doesn't deliver their goods or if the sender executes double spend attacks. But theoretical double-spend attacks aside, almost all transactions require some minimal level trust between the merchant and the customer regardless of payment system. In this sense, Cryptocurrency doesn't prevent fraud completely but it does severely limit the extent and direction of fraud.
gjvnq 4y ago
> And it's hard to fire these customers because they come back with a different card and fake names. Perhaps it is time to start asking for government IDs before accessing customer service.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  How would that work if you validly didn’t make the charge or were charged incorrectly and were calling to give them a chance to fix things? I once had someone enter my zip code as the payment amount and completely drained my bank account at a time in my life when I somewhat enjoyed eating and if they told me I would have to send them a copy of a government issued ID before they would even talk to me I don’t even know what would have happened. Nothing good I can tell you.
omegalulw 4y ago
And these systems exist because sellers do fraud too, merchants that don't ship after taking payment, etc. With irreversible payments through crypto you are just pushing all the risk on customers. That will never fly.
- rglullis 4y ago
  If the customer does not trust the merchant, they simply don't make the payment with crypto. Why, oh why is it so hard to understand the concept of multiple alternatives?
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Every retailer with a median transaction size under $20 hates credit cards. Yet with rare exception they all take cards. The customer chooses the mechanism, not the merchant. To best credit cards you'll have to be more customer friendly.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      Come to Berlin and marvel at how many cash-only shops we have. And if you are talking about internet retailers, can we make an exercise to think of how many new businesses would be viable if transactions of 20 cents were a thing?
      - scatters 4y ago
        Why is that? Is Berlin more prone to credit card fraud than usual for Europe?
        rglullis 4y ago
        Two explanations I've heard: (1) small-shop owners simply do not want to pay the fees to card processors and (2) people are more privacy-minded here and distrustful of both the government and the banks, so they don't use credit/debit cards for purchases as often.
rglullis 4y ago
Thank you for your comment, for a moment I thought I was crazy to believe that it can make sense to have a payment system where merchants are protected. When I say the majority of anti-crypto people are privileged, it's because of this. They never got to experience life in a world where people nickel-and-dime on a 5 dollar purchase. They can not even conceive of a world where "evil" business owners have legitimate reasons to want to protect themselves, and they can't even see that people will do the most stupid stuff over pettiness or because they think they can get away with it.
- ribosometronome 4y ago
  >When I say the majority of anti-crypto people are privileged, it's because of this. They never got to experience life in a world where people nickel-and-dime on a 5 dollar purchase. Ah yes, a classic case of "non-business owner privilege". Most of us are blind to how good we have it.
- pixl97 4y ago
  There are a few million(?) businesses in the world. There are at least 8 billion people in the world. Your average individual isn't going to adopt a payment scheme that protects businesses at the expense of themselves.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    > Your average individual The "average individual" has approx one breast, one ovary and one testicle. Speaking of "average individual" is meaningless. The important thing is to think of how many business transactions are completed or never initiated due to the existence or absence of an a payment option. > protects businesses at the expense of themselves If you browse around this thread, you'll find maybe 7 or 9 other times where I responded to this: of course, for most use cases people will be fine by using the current systems. This does not eliminate the other cases that are not viable with the current systems, such as cases where the risk is negligible to the user on the individual transaction, but the risk to the merchant is too high at scale.
viraptor 4y ago
There's also the issue of <$10 services being used explicitly to test stolen credit cards, before they're sold and used for the big spending. > with 0% low level fraud like this. It's got its own issues. For example i hope you've got a separate wallet per transaction. Otherwise someone will use their tumbled BTC to pay you and you'll get blacklisted from using it in exchanges.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I think bitcoiners already use a new address for every transaction. They call it "HD Wallets". >Otherwise someone will use their tumbled BTC to pay you and you'll get blacklisted from using it in exchanges. This is a non-issue for cryptocurrencies with mandatory obfuscation like monero. Worst case scenario, you swap your tainted BTC for monero[0] and take the monero to an exchange. [0] https://github.com/comit-network/xmr-btc-swap https://github.com/comit-network/xmr-btc-swap
moneywoes 4y ago
Have you explored any crypto payments for this purpose?
Kye 4y ago
This is why I switched to $10+ tiers on Patreon, and later, Ko-fi. Less than that and you get a lot of impulse pledges. Most of them are fine, but it only takes one person who didn't read what was on the pledge page clearly to make trouble. At $10+, you get people who are mostly there for the journey and aren't troubled if you make big changes. The flexibility is worth not getting a few bucks from people who don't read before buying.

cowtools 4y ago

Well, in crypto there's still non-zero amounts of fraud if the merchant doesn't deliver their goods or if the sender executes double spend attacks. But theoretical double-spend attacks aside, almost all transactions require some minimal level trust between the merchant and the customer regardless of payment system. In this sense, Cryptocurrency doesn't prevent fraud completely but it does severely limit the extent and direction of fraud.

gjvnq 4y ago

> And it's hard to fire these customers because they come back with a different card and fake names. Perhaps it is time to start asking for government IDs before accessing customer service.

UncleEntity 4y ago
How would that work if you validly didn’t make the charge or were charged incorrectly and were calling to give them a chance to fix things? I once had someone enter my zip code as the payment amount and completely drained my bank account at a time in my life when I somewhat enjoyed eating and if they told me I would have to send them a copy of a government issued ID before they would even talk to me I don’t even know what would have happened. Nothing good I can tell you.

omegalulw 4y ago

And these systems exist because sellers do fraud too, merchants that don't ship after taking payment, etc. With irreversible payments through crypto you are just pushing all the risk on customers. That will never fly.

rglullis 4y ago
If the customer does not trust the merchant, they simply don't make the payment with crypto. Why, oh why is it so hard to understand the concept of multiple alternatives?
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Every retailer with a median transaction size under $20 hates credit cards. Yet with rare exception they all take cards. The customer chooses the mechanism, not the merchant. To best credit cards you'll have to be more customer friendly.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Come to Berlin and marvel at how many cash-only shops we have. And if you are talking about internet retailers, can we make an exercise to think of how many new businesses would be viable if transactions of 20 cents were a thing?
    - scatters 4y ago
      Why is that? Is Berlin more prone to credit card fraud than usual for Europe?
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Two explanations I've heard: (1) small-shop owners simply do not want to pay the fees to card processors and (2) people are more privacy-minded here and distrustful of both the government and the banks, so they don't use credit/debit cards for purchases as often.

rglullis 4y ago

Thank you for your comment, for a moment I thought I was crazy to believe that it can make sense to have a payment system where merchants are protected. When I say the majority of anti-crypto people are privileged, it's because of this. They never got to experience life in a world where people nickel-and-dime on a 5 dollar purchase. They can not even conceive of a world where "evil" business owners have legitimate reasons to want to protect themselves, and they can't even see that people will do the most stupid stuff over pettiness or because they think they can get away with it.

ribosometronome 4y ago
>When I say the majority of anti-crypto people are privileged, it's because of this. They never got to experience life in a world where people nickel-and-dime on a 5 dollar purchase. Ah yes, a classic case of "non-business owner privilege". Most of us are blind to how good we have it.
pixl97 4y ago
There are a few million(?) businesses in the world. There are at least 8 billion people in the world. Your average individual isn't going to adopt a payment scheme that protects businesses at the expense of themselves.
- rglullis 4y ago
  > Your average individual The "average individual" has approx one breast, one ovary and one testicle. Speaking of "average individual" is meaningless. The important thing is to think of how many business transactions are completed or never initiated due to the existence or absence of an a payment option. > protects businesses at the expense of themselves If you browse around this thread, you'll find maybe 7 or 9 other times where I responded to this: of course, for most use cases people will be fine by using the current systems. This does not eliminate the other cases that are not viable with the current systems, such as cases where the risk is negligible to the user on the individual transaction, but the risk to the merchant is too high at scale.

viraptor 4y ago

There's also the issue of <$10 services being used explicitly to test stolen credit cards, before they're sold and used for the big spending. > with 0% low level fraud like this. It's got its own issues. For example i hope you've got a separate wallet per transaction. Otherwise someone will use their tumbled BTC to pay you and you'll get blacklisted from using it in exchanges.

cowtools 4y ago
I think bitcoiners already use a new address for every transaction. They call it "HD Wallets". >Otherwise someone will use their tumbled BTC to pay you and you'll get blacklisted from using it in exchanges. This is a non-issue for cryptocurrencies with mandatory obfuscation like monero. Worst case scenario, you swap your tainted BTC for monero[0] and take the monero to an exchange. [0] https://github.com/comit-network/xmr-btc-swap https://github.com/comit-network/xmr-btc-swap

moneywoes 4y ago

Have you explored any crypto payments for this purpose?

Kye 4y ago

This is why I switched to $10+ tiers on Patreon, and later, Ko-fi. Less than that and you get a lot of impulse pledges. Most of them are fine, but it only takes one person who didn't read what was on the pledge page clearly to make trouble. At $10+, you get people who are mostly there for the journey and aren't troubled if you make big changes. The flexibility is worth not getting a few bucks from people who don't read before buying.