am i able to restrict my shipping method by state/country?

YES! and you should restrict certain countries!

I got a $500 order from Indonesia when I first opened my store and got totally burned! I shipped it and the chargeback came 30 days later.

In my experience Indonesia, Malasia and Argentina are ones to restrict.

To do this, go into your shipping manager and setup the restriction.

also can you adjust shipping info to require entry of county as well as (or instead of) zip code? i live in new york and need this to work cuz our mailing system's different.

Ecomchica1 had a great point - I've had consistent troubles with Indonesia and Malaysia-based shipping addys. I would highly recommend avoiding them...always ended up being credit card fraud. Definitely check out anything from that region thoroughly.

I have experienced the most fraud so far from the U.K. i have been hit pretty hard one for over $800. And a few other smaller ones. I would reccomend you accept only money orders from countries outside the U.S. Canada, Puerto Rico and maybe Germany. Also when you ship to an alternate address than the one that matches the card you are playing with fire. I would reccomend you calling the person if they want an alternate ship to. many times if it is fraudulenet you willl know because the phone # either does not work or is the wrong #.

We will not ship anything to Indonesia... I have heard horror stories!

We just conducted a thorough analysis of all chargebacks. (After several thousand dollars). UK and Australia were the primary 2 offenders: mostly large dollar purchases. The second most common factor was the use of free email accounts- @yahoo and @hotmail. We have actually blocked the use of these accounts through a custom programming request with . We have decided that international sales cost us more in liability than we could ever make. Therefore, we no longer ship internationally. We do ship to Canada, only after the customer contacts us via email or telephone to verify information.

Also- Beware of customers requesting quick or overnight delivery- this is a sure sign to get the radar up at minimum.

I hope our loss can save someone from having to learn the hard way. The bottom line is that all fraud comes out of our pockets. The credit card companies DO NOT LOSE. Even worse, I have had many of the fraud customers come back for a second and third attempt- If I was not paying attention, i could have been ripped again.

I would like to find one site with a list of fraudulent email address used, names, addresses, etc- if anyone has seen such a site, please email me at sales@rollingpaperwarhouse.com.

If any enterprising entrepreneur wants to make such a site and sell memberships and advertising for ancilliary services- knock yourself out- I will sign up.

Janet
www.rollingpaperwarehouse.com

Great post Janet! Thank you!

This question is for ecomchica.

How do I restrict only certain international countries using the "custom shipping method"

Thanks

We try to stay away from all international orders right now. Too much risk for us as we're still just starting out. Generally we still accept some international orders when someone emails us asking and only if the order is worth the risk. the catch 22 is that the more a order is "worth it" the more "risk" is associated

However, we will never handle UK orders or any where the customer doesn't provide a ISP looking address AND a vaild telephone number to confirm a contact.

Also, if "Money is no object" or it MUST be sent out "RUSH RUSH RUSH" we kick a red flag up over here.

i have a quick question regarding chargebacks since im pretty new to this retail stuff and i havent experienced any chargebacks yet - how do chargebacks work? if the funds are already deposited into you business banking account? how do the credit card companies get their money back from me? can someone clarify this for me? thanks.


Hobby Scene

Hi liltricky,
Chargebacks are a tricky subject. Basically you as a business owner have no rights when it comes to chargebacks. Credit Card companies get their money back in one of two ways that I know of. Either they will take the money back out of your bank account or they will take it out of money that is due to you. My merchant will not even notify me first before taking the money back! I see the money gone and contact them regarding the chargeback, they tell me what the amount was and when it was first charged, but they won't tell me who the person is.
As the business owner you then have to prove that the charge was legitimate. Usually the only way to do this is a signature from the card holder authorizing a charge on their card. Online that is almost impossible. You can also contact the customer and remind them who you are and why you charged them and hopefully they will contact their credit card and authorize the payment.
Chargebacks are a bitch because 99% (except for ones that the customer just made a mistake and forgot who you were) of them you will lose and no matter what you do you will never see your money or product again.
Sorry to make it look bleak, just be real clear during checkout that your customer knows what name will show up on their card statement and what amount will be charged. And ALWAYS be careful of fraud (do not accept most International Orders, especially anything in Asia)
Good Luck

That clears up alot of questions. I guess I need to be extra careful with orders being shipped to different addresses. One thing I dont have to worry about is international orders cause I dont except international orders. Thanks for the quick response

Hobby Scene

Oh and I almost forgot - It sucks that we (as online retails) cant do anything about credit card fraud!

Well one thing you can do is 'try' to prevent it from happening. I think not accepting international orders will cut it down dramatically. However, some stores get alot of legit international orders...

The easiest things to watch for are obvious missing/bad information...

For example;

We've had several orders with the email address of "no@isp.net" or "no@aol.com" "test@test.com" etc... Raise a flag...

Some of those same orders have phone numbers of 000-000-0000, 123-456-7890, 555-555-5555, etc. Make that flag red!

And most of those the shipping & billing addresses are different PLUS the shipping method selected was a express method. Stop that order!

Once I can't email or call the customer I cancel the order. I put notes into the text box to indicate:

QUOTE

Invalid email/Invalid telephone --- Unable to contact customer to confirm order.  Order cancelled. If you would still like to receive this order contact us at sales@ultimatekeychains.com

So far no one has complained about not getting a order and I'd rather lose afew legit orders rather than be a high risk for fraud.

Just my thoughts... any one else have some ideas?

UltimateKeychains hit a lot of the red flags. But, we have never had anyone use bad information such as no@aol.com or 000-000-0000, I guess the people whom have tried to fraud us are trying pretty hard.
Obviously, yes, if the shipping and billing addresses are different than that is a red flag, but I would say a yellow flag if those addresses are in the same state. But, we had a shipping address of Indonesia and a billing address of Ohio one time and that is a HUGE red flag.
So, you can protect yourself, but fraud will happen, hopefully not on a big order. If you have any thought that its fraud try contacting the person to verify the order, if you can't reach them or don't hear from them, than cancel the order.
I think UltimateKeychains pretty much covered most of it, so I'll shut up now.
Good Luck

Anyone knows how to add a real time shipping with a custom note, such as USPS Priority (no insurance)? or USPS Priority with Insurance (plus $1.50)? I submitted a request to MC's tech support and they told me that the only way is to create a custom shipping, but that is too much work becuase I have to calculate the zone and weight myself.

We ship all over and the only two places we have had trouble are Malaysia and the UK. I understand the Malaysians since they are just plain sneaky, but the UK has no excuse. I even had one guy poke fun at us since we live in the colonies.
I thouroghly enjoy working with our many foreign customers and find the very few bad apples can be stopped with basic safegaurds as mentioned by many already.
If you have the time....take the plunge and expand your horizons a bit!
Dang, that's more than I've said since I've been on this forum