Protect your H-Sphere accounts from FRAUD

If you are an H-Sphere reseller then you need to read this.

Are you getting unwanted sign ups and aren't even sure of how they are gaining access to sign up for an account? If you have the sign up access for your hosting plans turned on in your admin control panel you are making it so that anyone who knows or finds your CP URL can sign up for any account. I have noticed that some resellers have hosting turned on for accounts that they create just for themselves that do not have any billing turned on, which means you are making it so that anyone can sign up with you and receive free hosting. Please check your admin control panel to make sure that you have the sign up access for any plans that you do not want outside people to sign up for turned off. I recommend checking your account to make sure your sign up access is set the way you want it. To check for this please log into your administrative control panel. Click INFO on the left hand side and then click PLANS directly below that. You should now have a list of your plans in a table. Under the section that says 'Sign Up Access' there will be a round button that says either 'On' or 'Off'. If you have plans that you do not want just anyone to be able to sign up for you would want the button to say off next to that plan. If you do not have this set correctly and someone signs up for an account with you and causes overages to your account, you are solely responsible for the charges that they incur upon your account.

Another precaution you should take is to turn moderation on for your new sign ups. To do this, log into your admin control panel and click 'settings' on the left hand side. Then click 'sign up guard' beneath the settings heading. I suggest choosing 'Moderate Everything'. With this set, any new sign ups will go into moderate and you will have the chance to take a look at the information they are providing and make sure it is legitimate and verify the account if you so choose to do so. Please click mail settings on the left hand side beneath the settings heading and make sure you have an email address in the moderated email section so that when someone does sign up and they go into moderate you will receive an email letting you know.

Here are some instructions on setting hard limits for disk space, database space, etc. This will keep your clients from raising their resources too high which in turn will cause you the overage fees.

Login to your admin control panel, click Info on the left hand side, then click Plans beneath the Info heading.
For each plan, click on the Resource button and scroll down to the resources you want to set hard limits for. Click Edit next to it---here you must put a number in Max Generic Values box to set limits. Then click Submit. No other information needs to be input in this area. If no Max limits are set here, any customer can increase their space and cause you to be charged for overages.


If you noticed that you had the sign up access turned on for some plans that you would not want people to sign up for you should check to see if anyone has already been given access to an account without your approval. To check for this please click Search on the left hand side. Leave all fields blank but change the 5 in the drop down box to 100. This will bring up a list of all of your end user accounts. Please take a moment to make sure that the accounts you have listed are all accounts that you have allowed hosting to. If you find an account that should not be there, click the delete icon towards the far right hand side of that account.

I strongly suggest everyone take a look at their h-sphere admin control panels and make sure that you have taken EVERY precaution to make sure you do not get fraudulent sign ups. Some customers have been surprised with invoices for hundreds, even thousands of dollars, so please, save yourself the time in the long run by checking your account now.

[resell01]

Yes listen to Lindsey!!!

[admin]

You should know first hand..

I would make it a point to check my reseller account for all the things I have listed above TODAY. I can not stress how important this should be to each and every h-sphere reseller.

[denver]

tnx for the info, moderation will somehow suspend automatic / real time sign up for online customers though, not unless the administrator will check their control panels from time to time

[mresell]

I think you have to check your cp from "time to time" anyway if you are using online signup, especially

[muthukumar]

i don't know? are there really plp around who have thier moderation off??

[admin]

Originally Posted by muthukumar

i don't know? are there really plp around who have thier moderation off??

Yea and with out billing so a lot of users are running in to issue.. We don't want to see this happening but we are also spending a large amount of time refunding ( that does cost us some money ) and telling them again and again how to fix it..

I know of one user that has had this happen 4 times and was told each time how to fix it.. I think he got the hint the last time..

[jmbeach]

Brad, based on the email you sent us today regarding this issue, I'd say that's pretty generous you even offer help with the 'first offense' - seriously, if people are going to get into the reselling business, they have to treat it like a business, not like a hobby. I know first hand that HSphere isn't the most friendly CP to setup, but no other hosts would offer any credits or 'second chances' on stuff like this.

[pbradley503]

I thought I had everything for my account tightened down but I didn't realize I could set hard limits to the disk space, database space, etc.

I have a question though. We use Summary Disk Sapce, under our accounts, both "Disk Space Quota" "MySQL" "MSSQL" and "Summary Disk Usage" and edit buttons next to them. Can we set limits for each or do we we set just the global "Summary Disk Usage" one? Likewise if we can set the limits for each, do we have to set a limit that is higher than any of the other limits for the "Summary Disk Usage" limit?

Thanks.

pwb.

[TicoGrande]

I would also suggest:

Setting up all of your Plans to charge the customer if they DO raise their disk space (or bandwidth) above the amount you allow in each Plan..

This can be a revenue producer just like any other add-on. For example, we charge $.12 per MB over their Plan limit, so if they DO raise the limit either by accident or on purpose, they first get a warning that this is NOT free and we make a nice profit if they choose to continue.

If they are set up for credit card billing, then YOU get paid before YOU get billed (at $.05 per MB by the way) by Vortec.

If they are on Check, then they will be unable to raise their disk space without prepaying you (unless, of course, you've set the credit limit at some ridiculous point).

Either way, you have the opportunity to make some money, and either way, you cannot get hurt.

Note... If you DO set hard limits as suggested above, your customer CANNOT raise his space above that preset linit and must either go to a bigger Plan or not raise it at all. Although this may be a safe approach, THIS can cause YOU to lose incremental revenue you might otherwise get by just setting up your Plans correctly in the first place.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by jmbeach

Brad, based on the email you sent us today regarding this issue, I'd say that's pretty generous you even offer help with the 'first offense' - seriously, if people are going to get into the reselling business, they have to treat it like a business, not like a hobby. I know first hand that HSphere isn't the most friendly CP to setup, but no other hosts would offer any credits or 'second chances' on stuff like this.

Thanks for understanding. We have no problem helping people fix their mistakes, however this has become a serious issue within the past 3 or 4 months that we felt needed to be addressed. Hopefully, this will help everyone have their accounts set up properly and securely.

Originally Posted by pbradley503

I have a question though. We use Summary Disk Sapce, under our accounts, both "Disk Space Quota" "MySQL" "MSSQL" and "Summary Disk Usage" and edit buttons next to them. Can we set limits for each or do we we set just the global "Summary Disk Usage" one? Likewise if we can set the limits for each, do we have to set a limit that is higher than any of the other limits for the "Summary Disk Usage" limit?

Thanks.

pwb.

Hi Pbradley,

I suggest setting a limit for each. Summary disk usage is based on usage for your client, but within their accounts they can raise the amount of disk space and database space that you have allocated to their account. If you have a hard limit set for each they would not be able to raise their allocated amounts above what you have set in the hard limit.

[jmbeach]

another tip is to go into your admin CP, go to 'settings/user warnings' and make sure you set these to send you email when your users get near their limits for many resources. I've been using it and it works really well to warn me when accounts are reaching limits. Plus you can suspend accounts if they go over a percentage of their traffic and/or disk usage. You can set it to suspend them if they are over 100% if you want to be strict, or set it to 120% if you want to allow a little flexability yet still stay under your own limits.

Also the suggestion to set overage pricing is a good one. If your customer goes over, then they pay for it and not you, and that way you're not asking Matrix for a refund when your customer should be picking up that tab.

[Brangwyn]

I'd seriously reccomend not using Summary Disk Usage until such time as Vortech offer it to their resellers. I've posted why I say this several times before, but basically you open yourself right up to getting large overages particularly when it comes to database disk space.