Timeline for How to ensure users can't sign up for multiple accounts?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
44 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 8, 2018 at 5:40 | answer | added | moslem yazdanpanah | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jul 18, 2015 at 9:29 | comment | added | Burhan Ali | How likely is it that people will created multiple accounts to use your one day/week demo? Do you continuation of service across demo accounts? | |
| Jan 18, 2015 at 15:14 | comment | added | Chethan S. | @ArtOfWarfare I did read some comments and later found an answer that said what I said in my comment. Didn't think of deleting the comment. Maybe I should have done that | |
| Jan 18, 2015 at 15:08 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @ChethanS.: If you bothered reading the comments before yours before posting, you would notice that has already been discussed. I had this question marked protected with the assumption it would stop the redundant comments/answers from appearing. | |
| Jan 18, 2015 at 13:55 | comment | added | Chethan S. | If you ask for a phone number but do not validate it using One Time Password sent to the number, users can bypass the requirement by keying in random numbers. | |
| Jan 15, 2015 at 23:41 | history | protected | JonW♦ | ||
| Jan 15, 2015 at 15:21 | comment | added | Crissov | Did you consider a public/anonymous demo account? That is not feasible in every setting of course and neither is the freemium model. | |
| Jan 12, 2015 at 10:11 | answer | added | AStopher | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 12, 2015 at 7:09 | comment | added | cpt_fink | Netflix uses CC number... just in case that data point helps at all. | |
| Jan 11, 2015 at 20:06 | comment | added | msw | For a one week trial, I'm not going to give you anything more than an email address. For a one day trial, I'm going to consider that so stingy as to not even bother. It appears that you have vastly overvalued the utility of your product before you have any customers. See @schwern below for a stronger presentation. Yes, I know your question asked for an affirmative freeloader reduction method, but your need exists only in your imagination at present. | |
| S Jan 11, 2015 at 8:18 | history | suggested | user1306322 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
we're not a news paper, please hold those caps
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| Jan 11, 2015 at 5:44 | comment | added | ADTC | Does your web app have some kind of "revenue" to the user? Like game points, virtual money or feature unlocking. These things will make their first trial account valuable enough to have them purchase your service and convert it into a full account. If they sign up for a second trial account they will lose all these and have to start from scratch. Serious users will not do that. Another possible way is what forex sites do. If you have a cost in your service that you encounter in real accounts, but can easily avoid in trial accounts, you can do what they do - offer trials to "get the feel". | |
| Jan 11, 2015 at 1:12 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 11, 2015 at 8:18 | |||||
| Jan 10, 2015 at 20:13 | answer | added | Saikiran Yerram | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 19:59 | comment | added | MSalters | "Multiple users sharing an internet connection" would cover the vast majority of Asian internet users. Due to the historical assignment of IP addresses, there are literally billions of people sharing addresses. | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 18:53 | answer | added | Schwern | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 18:07 | comment | added | erdekhayser | Maybe this has been noted, but do not go by credit card number. You don't want to tell your users that a credit card has already been registered, because then they know that that card exists... which is not good. | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 14:57 | comment | added | AStopher | It's common in Europe for ISPs to give out dynamic IPs to their home broadband customers, meaning that their IP changes every time their router/modem reboots. You'll need to be very careful about IP-related blocking. | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 14:20 | answer | added | Steve Jessop | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 11:31 | comment | added | Vi. | Provide a built-in "Trial period extender" with a captcha. It should avoid encouraging excess registrations and abandoned trial accounts. You will also get more accurate statistics about freeloaders. If users start using the service regularly, they will consider finally subscribing instead of entering the captcha each time. | |
| Jan 10, 2015 at 2:49 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @Stephen I signed up and asked this here because how the user would react to being asked for this kind of information was a major concern of mine. So it struck me as mostly a UX issue. I do see your point that it also has a business model aspect to it, though. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 22:04 | comment | added | Stephen | @ArtOfWarfare I'm not sure this is a UX question at the heart of the matter. It's more about preventing users from cheating the system. Anyway, instead of a full trial maybe you could give them limited features until they decide to subscribe. Again, more of a business model decision than anything else. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 21:19 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackUX/status/553662280031031297 | ||
| Jan 9, 2015 at 20:20 | answer | added | david | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:47 | comment | added | Tymric | @ArtOfWarfare Actually, getting additional credit card and phone numbers is not that complicated. Some services offer them for a cheap subscription such as this one. Even if your service is cheaper, users might still use fake numbers if they already have them or are using them for another service | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:38 | answer | added | Ahauehauehauehu | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:21 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @SteveJones - I still don't see how this is a real issue for me. None of the things you're talking about are trivial ways of getting additional phone numbers - they all cost money and require effort. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:19 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @rachoune - The service I'm looking at, literally the first one that showed up in a search, was clickatell.com. They can handle international although I can't quite figure out which pricing is relevant. Maybe I'll limit my service to US only for the initial rollout, since I'm going to need to collect some money before I'm able to afford scaling up how many people my servers can handle. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:16 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @Willl - That doesn't sound too hard. Just need to use an SMS Gateway to send a single verification message per user. I just found one that charges 1 cent per message. I can limit the number of verification messages sent per IP address per day or something like that to avoid someone spamming me and wasting all my money. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 19:16 | comment | added | rach oune | would verification texts work internationally? i've come across situations where users were unable to sign up because verification texts never arrived to their non-local phone numbers | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | Steve Jones | @ArtOfWarfare Burner phones are very common and there is an app that allows you to create new numbers on demand. IP addresses are no good as you can't be sure who is using them, also they can change for the same person. Credit cards are available where you can issue numerous numbers, like disposable burners, for use online to protect customers from fraud. i.e. you issue single use number, with $20 limit. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 18:32 | comment | added | Willl | Bear in mind that you'll have to validate the phone number otherwise it's not worth having for identification purposes. That's quite a lot of overhead. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 18:22 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @SteveJones - How can they be easily obtained? To get a phone number, you'd either have to use someone else's (easy to thwart by sending a verification text) or you'd have to buy another phone number, which costs more than just paying for my service. IP Address... I suppose you might be able to obscure with TOR, maybe, but you can't just send me an arbitrary IP address without buying more from your internet provider. Credit Cards you'd have to steal (so someone would report it stolen) or you'd have to go through a lot of hassle with a bank and the bank will reject you eventually. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 18:00 | comment | added | Steve Jones | Phone numbers, IP addresses and credit cards can easily be obtained. Many people have many of each. Just use email address and accept that a few people might cheat. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 17:40 | comment | added | ArtOfWarfare | @Stephen Is that directed at me? I'm not thinking of improving the UX by making users sign up - ideally they wouldn't need to sign up at all. But I have to make them sign up or else I can't make money (thus I can't afford to provide the service), so I'm trying to find out which of the sign-ups methods will have the least negative impact on the UX. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 17:36 | comment | added | Stephen | How is this going to improve the experience of the user in any way? | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 16:59 | vote | accept | ArtOfWarfare | ||
| Jan 9, 2015 at 16:00 | answer | added | Henry Taylor | timeline score: 13 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:52 | comment | added | JonW♦ | Be careful what you go with. Don't end up annoying 100% of users just to protect yourself from the 1% that might abuse it. | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:51 | answer | added | Jesse Friedman | timeline score: 39 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:46 | answer | added | skwokz | timeline score: 15 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:44 | answer | added | Gustav | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:27 | review | First posts | |||
| Jan 9, 2015 at 17:11 | |||||
| Jan 9, 2015 at 15:25 | history | asked | ArtOfWarfare | CC BY-SA 3.0 |