Why I don't buy digital content unless I can "free" it

[Haertig]

https://www.ghacks.net/2019/04/02/microsoft-is-shutting-down-books-in-microsoft-store/

Microsoft is shutting down Books in Microsoft Store

Microsoft revealed today on a new support page that it is closing the books category in Microsoft Store effective immediately.

Microsoft Store customers cannot buy new ebooks anymore from today on, the category is no longer listed in the Store.

Customers who have bought ebooks in the Microsoft Store will lose access to these books starting July 2019.
...

In this case, Microsoft is confiscating the eBooks you purchased from them. They are offering refunds, which is good, but there are still problems. If your original credit card used for the purchase has expired or if you didn't let Microsoft store it on their servers, all's you get is a store credit. As if anyone would want to buy anything from the Microsoft Store ever again, after this fiasco.

If you buy eBooks, you really should research how to remove the DRM from them. So far, several companies have separated buyers from the eBooks that they purchased. Even some big players - Barnes and Noble, and now Microsoft here. Amazon has selectively deleted eBooks from their customers Kindles, AFTER customers have already purchased them.

Buyer beware if you're purchasing "digitally delivered" stuff. It's not just eBooks. Music is another. Games for digital consoles is another. Movies and TV shows. The list goes on and on. DRM may be good in concept - to protect artists and producers. But it is very bad in implementation. Digital delivery sure is convenient, but you should probably treat it like dinner out in a restaurant - a short term pleasure/entertainment that will be totally useless to you very shortly after purchase. Unless you learn how to remove DRM (a subject that does not belong here on Talk Firearms, but is easily researched).

 

[SHOOTER13]

I Don't TRUST Any Company with My Information...especially online.

My DoD Background was in Cyber-Security...and you wouldn't believe the things I saw.

I'll just leave it at that...

I also maintain a separate account with my Credit Union...totally aside from my Bank Checking and Savings.

So that when I order something online...I simply transfer that amount to the "special" account...then use the CU Debit Card to pay that vendor.

If there is a any problem...that account is already isolated from my main accounts...thus preserving those ( main Bank ) account(s) integrity.



.

 

[Haertig]

For online purchases, I use this thing called "ShopSafe" that my bank provides. You generate your own credit card numbers - you pick the max amount that can be charged, you pick the expiration date. You can revoke the card at any time. Once a merchant has charged against the card, no other merchant may do so. So technically, you cannot create a card for a specific merchant - but the first merchant who charges against it locks it to that single merchant. That first merchant can make subsequent charges against the card, up to the max you allowed or the expiration date. You can make these cards almost 24x7. I say "almost", because it seems that every Sunday night they must do some kind of database maintenance for about an hour and you can't access your cards (to create new ones) at that time. But that's minor.

So if I want to buy something online for $100, I create one of these cards for a max of $110, expiration date 2 months, and give it to the merchant. You want to make the cards for a bit over the purchase amount because most merchants will put a "test charge" on the account to make sure the card is good. This test amount varies from merchant to merchant, but usually $10 over works. If not, you will probably see an email from the merchant saying that they failed to charge your card. You fix this by increasing the amount available on the card and telling them to try again. In the end, you don't pay these test charges, but they do count against the max you can charge with a credit card. Usually I just let one of these cards expire on its own after the two month period, but sometimes I go and revoke the card right after I see that the merchant has charged it. You can see all this online in real time.

You can also make cards for recurring payments. Say, "Let the merchant charge $25 per month up to a max of 12 months". These are good for those subscription things where they say, "Cancel before your next auto payment is due". I hate that. So I create a card for a specific number of payments. Thus I don't have to remember to cancel with the merchant and all of a sudden they find they just can't charge your card anymore once your expiration period hits. Handy.

This service is through "Bank of America" and it's called "ShopSafe". It's free. All of these one-use cards that you create are charged against a back-end card that you have with the bank. You never give out that back-end cards number, you never even use it if that's what you want to do (it's just a regular credit card). I have this back-end card set up for an absolute max of $5000 as a secondary fallback. The bank will no doubt want to give you a much higher limit, and they will push for that, but I argued with them and eventually they agreed to set my maximum at the requested $5000. So your monthly statements all show up against this back-end card, even if you actually used a whole bunch of the one-use cards for the actual purchases.

These one-use cards are a great protection from the biggest online theft threat. Crooks these days don't go after your individual CC transactions these days - they try to steal the entire CC database from a merchant! Thousands of customers in there. Your CC number will be in that database too, but since it's only chargeable by the original merchant, there's nothing the crooks can do with it.

[edit]Note that the "single merchant" aspect of these cards can occasionally trip you up. Say you create an order at Amazon with multiple items, each item coming from a different third party vendor. The first vendor will be able to charge the card, but the remaining vendors will not. So you have to group your Amazon purchases so that each third party vendor gets they own order. This is less of a hassle than it sounds like, unless you buy a whole lot of stuff in batches from a bunch of different third party vendors, at the same time.[/edit]

 

[Supervisor42]

For online purchases, I use this thing called "ShopSafe" .... <SNIP>
....from a bunch of different third party vendors, at the same time.

Man!
You make this way more complicated than it has to be:bang Head:.
It's their money.
Let them worry about it:wink:.
All we have to do is:
1. Read our statement.
2. Only pay for stuff that you authorized.
3. Let them know what you didn't authorize so they can take it off.
If they give you any grief, toss their card in the dresser drawer, and pick another one off the top of the pile. :wait:

 

[Haertig]

Fixing the problem afterwards is indeed simple these days, but IMHO, still not quite as simple as avoiding it in the first place.