[ic] blocking customers

[Mike Heins]

Quoting Interchange Admin (interch@viehweg.net):
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 03:35:59PM +0100, Kevin Walsh wrote:
> > > I have a client who has asked for something that I haven't seen
> > > discussed here and did not find via searches on the web site or
> > > mailing list.
> > > 
> > > He has some customers that he would to prevent from being able to
> > > order due to having to constantly go after them to get them to pay.
> > > 
> > > Has anyone come up with a simple (!!!) way to do this.
> > > 
> > > Note: He does not use any of the standard interfaces that comes
> > > with Interchange.  The site is very simple and is exactly what
> > > he wants.  (www.captemo.com, if interested).
> > > 
> > The simplest way is to just not process orders from those customers;
> > just mark them as 'cancelled', 'denied' or whatever when they come in.
> > 
> > If they actually provide a credit card and pay then the goods can be
> > sent.  If they don't, and they are on your blacklist then just cancel
> > the order.
> > 
> > It doesn't get any simpler than that. :-)
> 
> Yes, I agree, that is quite simple.  However, how do you recognize
> them as the bad guy?
> 
> Address?  "1234 Main Street" "1234 Main St." and "1234 Main St" are
> all valid but are also all different to a computer!
> 
> email?  How many email addresses do you have?  I have about 10 that
> I check daily.  And that doesn't count hotmail, etc....
> 
> A lot of customers that use this site do not have credit cards as
> they are "kids", so we had to allow for "money orders".  This is
> where the trouble starts.  We usually give the person two weeks to
> send in the money.  Then a couple of nagmails.  Then the item is
> returned to available status.  This is a month or so of time that
> the item can not be sold to someone that will actually pay for it!

I did a "bahn list" thing. It was actually named because a particular
person named "Michelle Bahn" was the big problem. She always shipped
to NNNN Crandall St., San Diego. Later others were a problem, and
we put in a general purpose "ban list" which was checked in the
checkout profile.

Basically, you just make a usertag that accepts some regexes for
name, city, etc. You then evaluate the address information against
that and test. You could keep them in a database, or just in a
Variable.

I am sure a good consultant can take care of this for you if you
can't get it from there.

-- 
Mike Heins
Perusion -- Expert Interchange Consulting    http://www.perusion.com/
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mike@perusion.com>

Fast, reliable, cheap.  Pick two and we'll talk.  -- unknown