Software customers who are actually scam artists
Every time someone downloads a demo software from my website I get emailed the form they fill out. Why is it that over the months I get emails from companies in Africa, India and elsewhere saying they have downloaded the demo from my website (which they have) but only after 1 or 2 minutes do I get a 1-liner email in broken English saying something like:
"We like you software very much. Please to buy".
I can't imagine how after only 2 minutes they managed to actually download the demo (15MB), install it, test it and decide they like it. So naturally I delete these emails.
Now I have a potential customer who found me on one of those online freelancer websites for freelance programmers, who downloaded the demo and says "I am serious about buying this product" and "I like your software though and decided to go ahead with it if we can talk to you" - but they didn't really have any questions and they only want 1 license and they want a discount.
Why do I smell a rat? Or am I just being paranoid??
I have checked this company out thoroughly, and they seem legit, but something doesn't feel 100% right.
My question is:
What do you know about these kinds of scammers (if they exist)? IIf these people are scammers, what do they hope to do with my software once they get their single copy? My software is enveloped and protected and uses a hardware key (dongle). I know these things can be cracked (sometimes easily, sometimes with a lot of effort). Should I be worried? Should I decline the sale (I won't make all that much money on 1 license, but I do need the business).
Your general thoughts on this are appreciated.
"We like you software very much. Please to buy".
I can't imagine how after only 2 minutes they managed to actually download the demo (15MB), install it, test it and decide they like it. So naturally I delete these emails.
Now I have a potential customer who found me on one of those online freelancer websites for freelance programmers, who downloaded the demo and says "I am serious about buying this product" and "I like your software though and decided to go ahead with it if we can talk to you" - but they didn't really have any questions and they only want 1 license and they want a discount.
Why do I smell a rat? Or am I just being paranoid??
I have checked this company out thoroughly, and they seem legit, but something doesn't feel 100% right.
My question is:
What do you know about these kinds of scammers (if they exist)? IIf these people are scammers, what do they hope to do with my software once they get their single copy? My software is enveloped and protected and uses a hardware key (dongle). I know these things can be cracked (sometimes easily, sometimes with a lot of effort). Should I be worried? Should I decline the sale (I won't make all that much money on 1 license, but I do need the business).
Your general thoughts on this are appreciated.
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Rfwoolf:
In response to your question, yes that chance is there and it always exists. It is just like the long lost relative in India that lets you an inheritance, but in order to claim the money, you have to wire them some portion of what they send you. In the end what they send you is bogus, but because it is coming from third world contries, it could be weeks or possibly months before you find out you do not have your share of the money and the money you sent to them is long gone.
In the end, you need to use your best judgement. One way to weed these people out may be to have them contact you if they are interested in a demo product. You could then provide a username / password that would be needed to download the demo, as opposed to having the demo for anyone in the world to download.
Sorry it took so long to reply. I have been busy and have not had a lot of time to devote to the site.
In response to your question, yes that chance is there and it always exists. It is just like the long lost relative in India that lets you an inheritance, but in order to claim the money, you have to wire them some portion of what they send you. In the end what they send you is bogus, but because it is coming from third world contries, it could be weeks or possibly months before you find out you do not have your share of the money and the money you sent to them is long gone.
In the end, you need to use your best judgement. One way to weed these people out may be to have them contact you if they are interested in a demo product. You could then provide a username / password that would be needed to download the demo, as opposed to having the demo for anyone in the world to download.
Sorry it took so long to reply. I have been busy and have not had a lot of time to devote to the site.
ASKER
nettek0300:
"Is there a chance they are trying to purchase the software so that they can resell it while sending you bogus money? Are you willing to chance losing the money off of that piece of software if the customer's payment is not valid?"
-Well I do require a deposit (to cover the cost of a dongle, postage, and a bit more for my time) so they won't get anything without paying me that first. But yes, then they could just refuse to pay the rest of the bill. I would then have to take them to court or small claims court and if I'm not in the same country this could prove difficult. They could also try and modify and sell the software - which is what I'm always worried about - so I use a dongle and I envelope my software so that it won't run without the dongle. All the dongle companies brag about how uncrackable they are, yet all the hackers claims to be able to crack most of them - so it's hard to be sure.
xnatex21:
"Also, as a side note, never give a discount unless you plan on making up for it from that customer later."
-Thanks for that advice. Because they seem like they're going to be a small client anyway, and they aren't a huge company and I could really use the business, I think I'm going to cave and give them a discount. I will make it clear that all future license purchases will be at the full price.
galadore:
"In the one encrypted page I included a call to home that sent the IP address of the site where it was being run from and notified me of any new IPs."
-That's definitely an interesting thought - I think I've considered it before but pushed it far down the list because other things were more important, plus there are (I assume) some challenges in getting it to send emails or connecting to servers without annoying or alerting the user. Still, if it is covert enough, even if they crack all the security mechanisms of the application, this is still useful to have.
While we're on the same subject, I remember reading a while back that the trend these days is to not alert your user if they don't have a legal copy of the software - because then they know what triggers it - for example if I get the app to check for the presence of a dongle after a certain button is clicked - rather check the dongle after 1 minute and then the user won't know what they did wrong.
debuggerau:
" define just how the software can be used, license its use, not its ownership, so you retain all rights"
-Yes fortunately I put a lot of effort into drafting a 6-page license agreement, and had it proofread by a lawyer-type friend of mine - but still could use a thorough legal inspection. Yes I sell licenses, not the software, and they have to sign it.
But I am a very small operation. I do suppose one thing I have on my side is that my software is very niche-market and not very well known (lol). Because of this, if they did try and crack and sell it, it would not be the same as trying to sell something hot and popular.
"What about as a ASP (application service provider) and license the software over the internet?"
-I would love to do this, but as far as I know converting a win32 application to a web application is a painful and tedious process. I hear there are tools now that export the locations of objects on your forms into XML, to then import them into HTML and to mimick the same sort of layout - which saves a lot of time (because for me the layout would be the most tedious aspect I guess).
This is something I will have to research further.
Thanks all. I appreciate all the input. I'm still half expecting someone to tell me that there's a Nigerian software scam ring, who buy software and try to resell it or some shit like that - because I'm convinced there's a whole industry of talented software hackers, I take my hat off to them - I can't sift through that mambo-jumbo (yet).