Nightshadow Productions is offering SSL certificates for as low as $14.99 per year! Wildcard certs start at just $49.99!

http://www.nightshad.com/services/domains/ssl/

We also offer backup DNS services and content writing services for your website or blog!

You'll find it all at http://www.nightshad.com/services

FYI. Your links give a 403 error.

No errors on our end. You must be trying to access from a banned country.

Trying to view the link from the UK in response to the above error messege and also getting a 403 error.

Again, you're accessing from a banned country. You very well should be getting the 403 if you're accessing from the UK.

I am just wondering why for a product that is used worldwide would you limit yourself in customer reach by banning regions and countries that are normally not known to have bad reputation? I have already seen members from the United Kingdom and the United States not being able to reach your website. Are you not in the United States yourself?

Then if you block countries that make up most of our site demographic, why post advertising here that is not reachable to some members?

Happy to field that one.

If you look at our banned country list:

http://www.nightshad.com/bad_countries

We ban countries, territories, or other areas that have been cited by our government as being high fraud areas, or in our own experience play host to large amounts of fraud. There are the usual suspects, but we do also note that we reserve the right to refuse these countries. If we can verify the customer's information is correct, then we would likely have no problem, as long as everything can be verified.

We do also block known proxy sites, as well as some datacenter IP's, as we find that people use these addresses for abusive reasons. Essentially, people should be accessing from a home (DSL, cable, etc.) or work connection. We do also block certain mobile devices, as we can't think of a valid reason as to why someone wouldn't use a computer to browse our site.

There is no reason to be using a proxy server, especially when potentially purchasing services, nor is there a reason to obfuscate one's ID by using their server IP to browse the web with. It makes it seem as if they have something to hide, which is typical of those trying to commit fraud.

We have to balance accessibility with our protection, is what it comes down to.

We do business with more countries than we don't, so I feel that we offer our services to the majority of this site's demographic.

Okay, during the week and even yesterday I was able to see your website without issues. It comes on blank for me.

How can you verify a customer who cannot see the site or contact you for service?

We had to add a LOT of proxy servers today, as well as some subnets. It's possible yours was one of them, without being directed at you specifically.

The majority of customers who access our site from a proper connection, i.e. cable modem, DSL, or work, library, etc. should have no problems. The only people who may have problems are those in banned countries and those who try using a proxy server.

We are considering lifting the restrictions, but the concern is fraud.

For me, I often use my cell phone (droid) to browse websites, especially if I'm not at the office working. Being able to take a few minutes to check out some place that someone mentioned can make an impact.

Much like yourself, we do block certain IP ranges however we do this on the ORDERING system only, not the informational one. So someone can browse through our site with no issues, and if they're on a blocked IP when they go to the order screen it will alert them that their IP is blocked, why it is blocked and what provider they should contact along with an alternate contact method to us.

The internet is an international market, and while you do reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason, you could potentially be losing a target audience that would have otherwise been a perfectly legit sale.

As for dealing with fraud, you'll have that with ANY country and/or person. If you do valid fraud checks, call the person on the phone, verify IP locations etc, you'll find your fraud rate next to zero. If you are running a 100% automated system, then yes, your fraud can be high, but if you take the time to interact with your customers and verify the information, fraud should be minimal.

Just my opinion.

And that is a valid opinion. However, we have certain procedures in place to protect our billing platform in the manner that you mentioned. If anything's amiss, we do manually verify orders, but it's always better to keep the riff-raff out to begin with.

I fail to see the logic of letting people in who use mobile devices...those aren't real computers. Proxy servers? Duh. No one uses those but fraudulent people. And yes, some countries are pre-emptively banned, but safety first as they say.

I realize our methods may result in lost business, but I write it off as anti-fraud measures.

Unfortunately, since I, as well as other members, cannot seem to reach your site, I do not see the reason to keep advertising your service here.

You have your procedures, we have ours.

Thread closed.