Protecting your Digital Downloads with Firesage Checkout

How to Protect your Digital Products?

Thanks to payment processors like PayPal, anyone with a digital product can now directly sell their files from an online shop located on their own website. The problem, however, is making sure the payment and download process is secured, as you certainly don't want to give away your products for free. Let's take a closer look at Firesage Checkout, which implements a couple different layers of security to keep your digital files out of the hands of thieves.

Securing Product Folders

How many times have you seen product downloads that link directly to the digital file being sold? I am amazed when I see this, as it literally provides unlimited downloads of the item. Worse yet, when the link is posted on a blog, published on a pirate site, or even sent via email to many people, how many people may gain access to your digital goods?

Firesage Checkout provides a unique solution by producing a secure method to access your protected files. Rather than storing your digital goods in a location potentially accessible by hackers, the product folder can be stored in a private area on your server, made accessible only when using the Firesage code to grab the selected files. This helps keep your products safe, secure, and out of the hands of those not authorized to freely download your hard work.

Self-expiring Download Links

How long do you want to make your digital files available for download? Are you worried that links may be shared with others, giving free versions to anyone willing to bypass your order process? Take a close look at Firesage Checkout, where we provide links that self-expire based a time-limit set by you. Whether you want the link to remain valid for 1 day, 3 days, or week, you can easily configure the number of days to keep the download available.

Limiting Product Downloads

In addition to self-expiring links, Firesage Checkout also lets you determine the number of times a link can be downloaded. Whether a single download is sufficient, or you will allow multiple downloads of your product, you can depend on fsCheckout to keep your products safe.

Hacked Paypal Accounts

We were recently approached with a situation where digital products were being purchased with hacked PayPal accounts, allowing Paypal to claw the money back from the seller's account. The worse part is that the thief already had the product. Ouch! After researching the issue we found that the thieves were able to hack the PayPal account, but didn't have access to the user's email account. This prompted us to provide a secondary method of link delivery... via email. A secure link provides no protection when given to the wrong person, so rather than provide the link directly on the webpage after purchase, the download links are sent to the account owner via email. A success story where one customer dropped fraud cases from approximately 3 per day... down to 1 per month.

Dealing with Chargebacks and PayPal Disputes

One of the most frustrating experiences with online selling is receiving a chargeback, which occurs when the bank or credit card company forcibly reverses the payment. The most common chargeback scenario occurs when the customer files a claim with the credit card company asserting that they never received the digital item. In such a situation you need to provide absolute proof that the customer was the buyer of the item, and that they actually downloaded the product.

Firesage Checkout provides detailed logging, to help you prove you case against chargebacks or PayPal disputes. In order to provide you with the necessary details, we record the following information with each purchase:

• Buyer's name and email address
• Date and time of each download
• IP Address of each download
• Specific product that was downloaded

If a buyer is attempting to commit fraud, this information will typically provide enough evidence showing that the buyer actually made the purchase and completed the download. However, it is important to note that there is no guarantee, only that being prepared with detailed information will help your case.

Another important aspect of handling Chargebacks is to have a clearly defined refund policy. Whether your policy states Money-back guarantee, or No returns, No cancellation, No refunds, making it easy to find on your site, and even including it on your invoice or order confirmation will clarify for both the buyer and the bank what you permit.

Protect with Firesage Checkout

Firesage Checkout provides multiple layers of security to keep your products protected and out of the hands of thieves. You have worked very hard on your deliverables, don't just give them away due to inadequate security measures... keep your digital goods secured with Firesage Checkout!