[WARNING] Buying licensed software second hand

[Scritty]

As many of you guys may already know, I sell quite a bit of software. The last couple of days has seen a huge increase in the number of scams uncovered particularly from people buying licences in the USA. I'm guessing that has something to do with the proliferation of stolen credit card or PayPal details around Independence Day.

To put it short, if somebody is offering software which requires a continuous licence - second-hand - on this or any other forum then be very wary. The scam is very easy. The person buys a software either through their own credit card or more typically through stolen or illegally snooped credit cards or PayPal details. The software is typically completely activated and works 100%.

The fraudster will then have a post on a forum claiming they want to sell it and offering it at perhaps 50% of the original value. It seems like a bargain, too good to be true.

The sale goes through and the end buyer thinks they've got a bargain. Typically PayPal is used to facilitate this and as soon as the money is available in the fraudster's PayPal account they will attempt to make a withdrawal.

One of two things that happens. The person whose credit card details have been used or whose PayPal password has been snooped uncovers the fact by noticing transactions they did not make on their statement or being contacted by their bank. It's only a matter of time until the money is returned at anything bought that can be cancelled and that includes licensed software is deactivated.

In other cases the guy committing fraud themselves will actually refund the transaction and take the money out twice if you see what I mean.

Last year over Independence day and also around Thanksgiving the amount of fraud shot up by about 500%.
My sites do about 400 transactions a month and normally I get about one or two fraudulent resells every quarter or every (1 or 2 for every 1000 transactions).
In the last week I've had 4.

This follows the same pattern as last year around Independence Day and will probably be repeated again around Thanksgiving and over Christmas. I'm guessing a lot more transactions are done and is easier to both steal details and hide a few fraudulent transactions when there is much more going on.

I'm not saying don't buy a bargain second-hand license. It's not my place to say that. But if you don't know the seller really well and they don't have excellent reputation then you're taking a huge risk.

You don't end up with a bargain you end up with nothing. Your only recourse is a long winded criminal action.

As far as the original software developers and the official sales portal providers or affiliates are concerned - you have no recourse for a ferund what-so-ever.
The original software developers and the official payment providers will laugh in your face if you go to them through a refund for software you did not buy through them and tell you (quite rightly) that it's your problem and nothing to do with them. Be warned.

 

[cody41]

Yea, I'm a direct example of this paypal bullshit fraud. I've sold a TON of my wordpress plugin (wp-seoagency plugin) on Warriorforum and elsewhere. I happened to jump on the jvzoo bandwagon and got a bunch of affiliates I would never have had access to. The problem is (and I corrected it) is that many of these aff's were sending the offer to their lists and some of those people (to the tune of over 100 refunds via paypal credit card fraud protection) bought my stuff illegally and I had already paid out my affiliates for the sale. I corrected it to put in a delay for payment, but the damage was done.

Can't stand credit card fraud/paypal fraud with a passion.

 

[BleuMunkiGraphics]

The warning is great. And the method is wrong by all means. People are pathetic.
Fraud is Fraud, no matter what angle you look at it.
unfortunately, we can't stop it.

 

[Scritty]

The warning is great. And the method is wrong by all means. People are pathetic.
Fraud is Fraud, no matter what angle you look at it.
unfortunately, we can't stop it.

You're right there.
We can't stop it. It's as old as time.

But it's fair to warn people, and tell them how it's happening, and the consequences.

Many think they are covered or will get a refund or the software from the developer or the legal affilaite the fraudster bought it from.
They won't..and they need to know that.

9 times out of 10, unless you are very lucky or extremely persistent, if you get rolled like this, your money is gone - forever.

It's a thread I will point people to in future if they QQ about a "bargain second hand" piece of software being deactivated.

Fair warning

Scritty

 

[proxygo]

considering most basic software's are reasonably cheap these
days, makes me laugh people who work in seo always look for
the cheap rout, then when they stung [scammed] they wonder why.
common sense guys, if it looks to good to be true............................

 

[Scritty]

The one guy was demanding a refund.

"Your product sucks - worked for a day then failed, not it's telling me the license is invalid, you guys are ****** ******"

Checked my affiliate sales page, asked which one he was, told him the product had been refunded

"No i F****n didn't you lying b******d"

Had to put up with abuse for several hours. Turns out he bought it HERE on BHW for about 40% less than the minimum license fee via paypal. I told him the guy he bought it off had cancelled the license and got a full refund.

He STILL didn't get it "Refund my money now you fu**er"

Turns out the "seller" guy had used a couple of stolen CC's and bought licences for several different products on them. Made sales threads or PM'd people directly here, WSO, traffic planet and a few other forums, sold on the lot inside a few hours - by all accounts he must have made a few thousand dollars selling fraudulently acquired software and services.

CC fraud was discovered after about 3-4 days and all the transactions were reversed, and all the licenses were revoked.
By then he'd sold them on to suckers like the guy who was moaning at me, emptied his Paypal account - and gone.

I can understand these guys anger. But I can't understand how frikking stupid they are to

a) Buy from someone they don't know in the first place and....
b) Not understand the basic rules of ownership/liability that have been in place since the iron age

You want a refund - you go to the guy you bought the product off.
If you are stupid enough to hand over your money to someone you've never heard of and has little or no rep - then more fool you. Money is probably lost forever to you. Live and learn. No one elses fault but your own.

Scritty

 

[Boul Dous]

That's funny, I just saw someone somewhere talking about selling a Scrapebox license for 30 bucks.

 

[anonydev171]

There was a JrVIP right here on BHW promoting these type of sales in his signature, he was a new member now he is banned, here is his website /affback .com/ , if it is too good to be true, it is.

Profile: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/687057-greenbox.html

I guess he is just another scammer, not sure, just beware

 

[Scritty]

There was a JrVIP right here on BHW promoting these type of sales in his signature, he was a new member now he is banned, here is his website /affback .com/ , if it is too good to be true, it is.

Profile: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/687057-greenbox.html

I guess he is just another scammer, not sure, just beware

The mods here are VERY good and clean with what they offer here.
The only people who should consider most of BHW "shady" of Google (and maybe Moz)
If the admins and mods here see people offering stuff they think looks dodgy - they tend to close them down pretty quickl
BHW is about SEO and making cash on the internet using the most effective methods - maybe methods that pi$$ Google off, but that's about it.
Hell - you can't post free software on here without Virustotal. You can't make a sales thread without it being mod approved and tested (you can skip both of those issues on some so called "White hat" SEO forums)

Why BHW has a shady rep is because it's misunderstood. Most of the priggs outside don't see how much smarter we are and how much more cash most of us make than them ..... without breaking a single law (breaking Googles "guidelines" isn't breaking a law)

The old addage of "if it looks too good to be true...it probably is" applies here.

Scritty

 

[jimbobo2779]

There was a JrVIP right here on BHW promoting these type of sales in his signature, he was a new member now he is banned, here is his website /affback .com/ , if it is too good to be true, it is.

Profile: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/687057-greenbox.html

I guess he is just another scammer, not sure, just beware

He was banned for this very reason. These scams are very easy to catch if you have dealt with them in the past and this guy was obviously running a scam.

Also thanks to scritty for the great lesson here, its a shame that it needs to be put into "print" but it does.

I have had this happen in the past where a user purchased a license off a 3rd party and that payment was then reversed and I had to deactivate the account. Its no fun having someone cursing you out for killing "their" license and having to explain over and over that they did not pay for a legitimate copy and in fact their purchase cost me money (chargebacks cost vendors money if you didn't know). Hopefully this post will prevent people from getting suckered into buying a "second-hand" (read: fraudulent) license of some software.

 

[TheGreyMatter]

People still fall for this? They need to realize that the price tag the tool has is for a reason. And most of the money paid to the developer is used by him to reinvest and create another better tool for the people themselves. Trying to save few bucks, then contacting the support, abusing the dev, going through the dispute process is not really worth it!

Hence, the best option is to purchase brand new stuff all yourself even if the price is a little higher and stay safe.

 

[JackTheBalad]

Thanks, I just had someone offer me a second software license, glad I read this thread before I decided to take that offer

 

[blackberry]

Yeah people still fall for this.

As the joke goes "there is a sucker born every minute".

It also dosent help that half the worlds population has an IQ of 100 or less (which is border-line retarded), while the other half has an IQ of 101 or higher.

People still fall for this? They need to realize that the price tag the tool has is for a reason. And most of the money paid to the developer is used by him to reinvest and create another better tool for the people themselves. Trying to save few bucks, then contacting the support, abusing the dev, going through the dispute process is not really worth it!

Hence, the best option is to purchase brand new stuff all yourself even if the price is a little higher and stay safe.