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more on "Your papers please" down at the local mall
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 06:29:00 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Stephanie <sjwinters3 () hotmail com> Date: October 24, 2004 3:42:45 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] "Your papers please" down at the local mallDave, in response to the Fortune Magazine article about not being able to do returns at the mall, one thing that bothers me about this Verify-1 system of The Return Exchange is that people who buy a lot of retail goods like myself
(I am an eBay Power Seller who buys lots of inventory both wholesale andretail) actually do many returns/exchanges for all sorts of valid reasons. For example, when you buy a lot, you get more defective products than the average person. So there should be a way to allow returns in proportion to the amount you buy. But since Verify-1 appears to uses a driver's license number to record how often you return, and that same driver's license number
is not recorded when you do your purchases, they would have no way of knowing your returns were not excessive in proportion to your actual purchases. They would only be only able to tell that they were excessivewhen compared to the average consumer, presumably. And believe it or not,
there are actually lots of retailers like me, as well as other "powershoppers" who buy an enormous amount of products with coupons or significant rebates for various reasons. And of course, there are people who just buy a lot. It goes to reason that if you buy a lot, you will also return more than
the average person. I do not know how one could ever consider excessivereturns as necessarily fraudulent ones, especially if the item is still new
and unused. There just is no way to know for sure. As a retailer, I applaud organizations trying to take a stance against fraudulent returns, but perhaps a better way would be not to issue acategorical "return denied" notice, but to allow the customer to offer an explanation to the store and let each store decide for itself. Of course, you could also require a driver's license for all purchases and then weight this against the returns, but then privacy advocates, myself included, would have a field day. The bottom line is that there really is no way to automate
this process without knowing the full purchasing history of a person. Stephanie ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net> To: "Ip" <ip () v2 listbox com> Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 2:09 PM Subject: [IP] "Your papers please" down at the local mall
Begin forwarded message: From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com> Date: October 22, 2004 2:00:22 PM EDT To: farber () cis upenn edu Subject: "Your papers please" down at the local mall Hi,Fortune Magazine has just run a story showing how drivers licenses and theInternet are being used to track "bad" customers who return too much merchandise at clothing stores. Here is a link to the Fortune article: Sorry, Your Return Is No Good Here http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,710662,00.html Here's how the system works: http://www.returnexchange.com/about/index.asp Our signature product, Verify-1, utilizes an ASP model to provide return authorization services that are initiated by either a VeriFone or similar type platform on a retailer's POS system. A driver's license or state I.D. card is swiped through these devices to initiate a product return, and similar to credit card or check verification, the data is transmitted to The Return Exchange's host server for an approval for return authorization. We detect fraud through utilization of deterministic rules, statistical models and a shared return information database.Missing from the Web site is any brag list of customers and names and bios of management personnel of the company. Looks like the company values itsprivacy. Richard M. Smith http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as sjwinters3 () hotmail com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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