[ic] Competitors placing fake orders; need help...

[Ed LaFrance]

At 09:30 PM 11/19/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Quoting Stefan Hornburg (Racke) (racke@linuxia.de):
> > Jason Ballou <jasonballou1@yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> > > My exceedingly unscrupulous competitors are placing
> > > fake orders where they order several thousand of a few
> > > items at a time, depleting my inventory numbers for
> > > that item and preventing my customers from ordering it
> > > until I re-inventory the items.
> > >
> > > I am running version 4.8.1.  What is the easiest way
> > > that I can set a maximum quantity per item, keeping in
> > > mind that I know almost nothing about programming?
> >
> > You can check the order amount on the basket and checkout
> > page and disallow any orders above a certain limit.
>

You might want to consider blocking their traffic in it's entirety, using 
entries in an .htaccess file in your cgi-bin or some other method provided 
by Apache.  Then they get nothing but a 403 error page - no access to the 
catalog at all.  Also, if you know who these people are (and if you have 
their IP's from Apache's access_log file you are well on your way), demand 
that they stop, and make sure they know you mean business.  Consider having 
a lawyer write the demand for you.  I wouldn't be surprised if what they 
are doing would be legally classified as malicious, fraud, or otherwise in 
violation if the Interstate Commerce Code.

- Ed L.

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