I understand why he is annoyed. I don't have things nearly so bad, but I do live overseas and use bank accounts in the United States (where I am from) on a regular basis. It leads to constant fraud flags - which I can, at least, normally clear up by talking to the companies involved and explaining myself. Paypal is disagreeable about it, so I've had to give up on using them for the most part.
Anyway - I agree with him that it's a pain. My solution is to use a VPN, too. As long as that gets the problem solved I'm happy.
Fraud IS a major concern in general. I don't have the data to even have an opinion on whether rejecting everything out of Nigeria so aggressively is justified, but if it was my business, would I flag it for manual inspection? Absolutely.
I'd also be willing to listen to my customers and manually approve things when it's justified. I can't really ask for more than that. Now, as I said, I'm sure the situation if you are coming from Nigeria is even worse. But I think what he should be asking for is a little more openness in the "manual validation" area, rather than full up-front acceptance of his transactions. I don't think asking for that is realistic.
His response to "the amount of fraud necessitates it" is "F you" ... well, what, is he saying there isn't a fraud problem, or if there is businesses should ignore it? Please. Give me a break. It's one thing to feel personally frustrated to that point, but to write it up like it's some kind of answer won't do anything.
I don't know what answer is better than the status quo, and apparently he doesn't either. Anyone have a comment on what that might be?
As a hobby I volunteer as "support" for an MMO, too. I go into an open chat room and answer people's questions. I'm very obviously a human - every response is different, the answers fit the questions (because I'm typing them!), I abbreviate people's names, I share anecdotes etc...
Still people not only ask if I am a bot constantly, sometimes they just decide that I am. (Of course, they still believe me if I start talking to them directly and "prove" it, but in those cases I don't like to ruin the joke if I don't have to!)
The only robotic thing I do is type about 90wpm - and read fast enough to keep track of a quickly scrolling chat room. It's not superhuman, but I am "above average" compared to the casual participants. I can understand people being surprised at first.
But making the leap into assuming a fast typist is a bot - despite all the evidence to the contrary - well, sometimes there is no actual problem. Sometimes people are just ridiculous.
I'm sure you do. I am a "ContentID criminal" for the same reason. Youtube isn't really the place I would choose for hosting my content after dealing with that...
Anyway - I agree with him that it's a pain. My solution is to use a VPN, too. As long as that gets the problem solved I'm happy.
Fraud IS a major concern in general. I don't have the data to even have an opinion on whether rejecting everything out of Nigeria so aggressively is justified, but if it was my business, would I flag it for manual inspection? Absolutely.
I'd also be willing to listen to my customers and manually approve things when it's justified. I can't really ask for more than that. Now, as I said, I'm sure the situation if you are coming from Nigeria is even worse. But I think what he should be asking for is a little more openness in the "manual validation" area, rather than full up-front acceptance of his transactions. I don't think asking for that is realistic.
His response to "the amount of fraud necessitates it" is "F you" ... well, what, is he saying there isn't a fraud problem, or if there is businesses should ignore it? Please. Give me a break. It's one thing to feel personally frustrated to that point, but to write it up like it's some kind of answer won't do anything.
I don't know what answer is better than the status quo, and apparently he doesn't either. Anyone have a comment on what that might be?