Pending customers domain purchase

[Richie]

Hi all

 

Not sure how many of you also have this problem but were using v3.2.3 and on every order we set our WHMCS so that all orders are vetted leaving new customers pending, but despite this, if a new customer orders a domain name, WHMCS will go off and register the domain name, even when customer status is "Pending" (Using enom)

 

We cannot leave the "auto registration" turned on at all due to the few fraud orders we have to cancel each month but we want to be able to leave the auto registration switched on so that existing customers domain names are renewed properly when they pay for them, and have pending customers left pending until verified!

 

Why does WHMCS go off and register a pending customers domain name, even when we havent approved the pending order?

 

Also, when we do then approve a customer and select "Tick this box to attempt domain registration" upon approving a customer, the domain name still doesnt register and we have to go to it manually and click the "Register" button from the customers domain page.

 

We want to see "Pending" as exactly that...

 

you dont get diddly until we verify you are not a fraud, and we want existing customers to be able to utilise the automation of automatic domain renewals without having to do each one manually.

 

Surely this is quite a big bug?

 

Pending = Do not do anything

Active = Auto register/renew domains/services

[Matt]

I don't understand your post? No customer status is ever pending. The order is pending, but if you have automatic registration on payment enabled then of course once paid that is what WHMCS is going to do. The customers status is active, order is pending as all new orders will be. If you don't want to register domains automatically when the customer pays you for them then you should just disable the option like you have done.

 

Matt

[Richie]

Hi Matt

 

Thats all well and good, but disabling this auto renew, then disables it for everybody an means that ALL domain names all need to be renewed manually.

 

New orders where the order itself is pending should stay pending until approved so that we can leave the auto renew thingy switched on, giving us proper automation, existing customers less grief as they wont need to wait for us to renew their domains, and us no fraud orders killing our enom money.

 

?

[Sitecenter]

I see what Richie's saying and it would be a good option to have as a new feature the ability to choose the automatically create orders by new customers and existing.

[Richie]

I see what Richie's saying and it would be a good option to have as a new feature the ability to choose the automatically create orders by new customers and existing.

 

thanks Sitecentre, but I was more trying to say that this is an actual bug rather than a feature request.

 

If an order is "Pending" (Regardless of paid or not) then it should stay pending untill we say so, and WHMCS should not go off and register domains automatically when a domain name order is pending.

 

This leaves us in 1 of either 2 positions...

 

Leave the automated stuff switched on, and suffer every fraud order for domain names (Could get expensive if the fraudsters figure out that domains are actually being registered) or we have to register and renew EVERY single domain name in our system when invoices are paid.

 

This is a nightmare though because when an invoice is paid you will need to go check if it was for a domain name or not, so you dont forget to renew it.

[simplybe]

I hadn't realised whmcs did that ! So does that mean that a fraud order would still get the domain name registered ?

 

That's not good, The domain should only get registered once the order is accepted and the account is installed on the server. Thanks for pointing that out richie, I just made my whmcs live so will have to go and disable it now.

[Richie]

I hadn't realised whmcs did that ! So does that mean that a fraud order would still get the domain name registered ?

 

That's not good, The domain should only get registered once the order is accepted and the account is installed on the server. Thanks for pointing that out richie, I just made my whmcs live so will have to go and disable it now.

 

Yes it does, a fraud order will still have the domain name registered, even when the order is still "Pending" (Which kinda defeats the entire point of "Pending" if its going to activate the domain name anyway.

 

So to avoid this you need to disable ALL of the auto domain registration thingies, and you will need to do all your renewals and registrations manually.

[simplybe]

well for now I have disabled the worldpay callback, so all new orders are not marked as paid. This isn't the best solution but at least it means domains won't be registered (I hope). Not sureif this is possible with other gateways.

 

I just took it for granted that a pending order would not have the domain registered.

[Richie]

well for now I have disabled the worldpay callback, so all new orders are not marked as paid. This isn't the best solution but at least it means domains won't be registered (I hope). Not sureif this is possible with other gateways.

 

I just took it for granted that a pending order would not have the domain registered.

 

Thats why you need to test these things yourself to see what would happen when a customer use's it.

 

Go ahead and try buying a new domain name yourself as if your a new customer, as we dont use worldpay do have no idea if it will still register the domain name.

 

 

Sidenote: why was this moved from bugs to Technical issues & questions?

I dont have a technical issue or a question, I'm trying to demostrate a bug in the way the software is working am I not?

[Matt]

Yes it does, a fraud order will still have the domain name registered, even when the order is still "Pending" (Which kinda defeats the entire point of "Pending" if its going to activate the domain name anyway.

Wrong. A fraud order can't be paid for if it's determined to be fraudulent by the fraud modules. You are talking about a fraud order when your only fraud check is manual. Of course then if the invoice is paid and you've got automated registration enabled after payment then WHMCS is going to register the domain.

 

Sidenote: why was this moved from bugs to Technical issues & questions?

I dont have a technical issue or a question, I'm trying to demostrate a bug in the way the software is working am I not?

Because this isn't a bug. Basically it's a feature request you're wanting to only renew domains automatically - not register automatically. But more simply, just use MaxMind for fraud checking and avoid the payment being made in the first place.

[Richie]

Yes it does, a fraud order will still have the domain name registered, even when the order is still "Pending" (Which kinda defeats the entire point of "Pending" if its going to activate the domain name anyway.

Wrong. A fraud order can't be paid for if it's determined to be fraudulent by the fraud modules. You are talking about a fraud order when your only fraud check is manual. Of course then if the invoice is paid and you've got automated registration enabled after payment then WHMCS is going to register the domain.

 

Exactly, WHMCS on its own I'm talking about. Pending still means pending though, paid for or not, otherwise, what does pending mean?

 

awaiting conclusion or confirmation; "business still pending"

 

Matt, I'm not asking for a new feature, I'm simply saying that new orders that are pending need to stay pending, exactly as it says on the tin....

 

"On your marks, get set" doesnt mean start running, so why does pending mean active? This isnt a grey area.

 

Maxmind is ok, but our manual checks involve more than what maxmind does, and cost's us nothing, and gaurantee's 100% no fraud gets through

 

Maxmind does less than we do manually but cost's money and doesnt have any room for human differences such as actually speaking to a customer and finding out why they only gave a mobile number etc.

 

This is why the "Pending" is so vitally important and needs to mean exactly what it says...

 

Matt:

I'm not trying to be difficult here or start any argument, but I am just trying to demonstrate the vital importance of pending without all of us having to rely completely on maxmind costing extra monthly payments..

 

I've tried maxmind and find that a lot of the things it thinks are fraud, actually are fine, such as UK Mobile phone numbers, or businesses that use a business card to pay for the hosting and the signup address is the bosses home (So the address numberics dont match up)

 

This can cost us sales and frustrate genuine customers before we have even had a chance to talk to them.

[Matt]

Yes it does, a fraud order will still have the domain name registered, even when the order is still "Pending" (Which kinda defeats the entire point of "Pending" if its going to activate the domain name anyway.

Wrong. A fraud order can't be paid for if it's determined to be fraudulent by the fraud modules. You are talking about a fraud order when your only fraud check is manual. Of course then if the invoice is paid and you've got automated registration enabled after payment then WHMCS is going to register the domain.

 

Exactly, WHMCS on its own I'm talking about. Pending still means pending though, paid for or not, otherwise, what does pending mean?

 

awaiting conclusion or confirmation; "business still pending"

 

Matt, I'm not asking for a new feature, I'm simply saying that new orders that are pending need to stay pending, exactly as it says on the tin....

No, I think you are misunderstanding. The order is pending, but certainly the majority of WHMCS users have hosting account activation set to automatic upon payment and then less, but still a lot, have automatic domain registration enabled on payment also. This means, as the name suggests, that on payment, the actions are going to be carried out. Just because the order status is pending doesn't affect this. Every order is pending so if that was the case, nothing would ever be done automatically.

 

What you are saying is you want all orders manually verified - ok, no problem - just don't enable the automatic on payment functions. The only issue here is you've enabled the automatic on payment features when you don't want them so all you need to do is turn them off. For the vast majority, they want it automated on payment and so that's what we provide.

 

Orders remain pending until manual verification has been made and it set to active. It doesn't mean the items in the order are not active. And btw, the MaxMind account you get access to with your WHMCS license is also free for up to 1000 order checks per month.

 

Will certainly consider your request for the option to allow automatic renewals without automated registrations for the future.

 

Matt