Blocking IP addresses for countries during checkout.

[paulbeckett]

Hi

We have been lucky because we have never lost out to fraud but it is a pain and an admin overhead. Due to the high level of fraud from IP addresses based in certain countries, I would like to block these countries from ordering online.

My payment provider, Worldpay, can do this for the actual payment phases which I will do, but I would also like to stop users based in the countries from going onto the checkout pages (certainly past the address page). This will cut down on admin (e.g. orders with no payment).

Has anyone done this?

Paul

[wjcampbe]

Paul, look at the list of countries included in your tax and shipping zones and your setting on what to do if the country is not present.

Correctly used this would result in a genuine user in one of the non-included countries receiving and invitation to send a contact message, allowing you to process as an offline order - if they pass all your fraud checks.

[paulbeckett]

Hi Bill

Paul, look at the list of countries included in your tax and shipping zones and your setting on what to do if the country is not present

Yes, we have EXCLUDED the countries in question as an option on the list. But this doesnt stop users ordering and selecting another country and writing their country in an address line. It becomes a admin overhead becuase we have to cancel.

Likewise there are users in certain countries that hold stolen UK card details, and ship to another address in the UK (that is set-up to receive stolen goods).

I want to stop all users in the countries in question from ever making an order online. I do not expect to receive geniune orders from these countries.

Paul

[wjcampbe]

Then the only solution I can offer is blocking them entirely - not just in checkout

try adding a block

<Limit GET>
order deny,allow
deny from 192.168.123.*
</Limit>

in your site root htaccess file (obviously replacing the 192.168.123 with the appropriate IP settings)

[paulbeckett]

Thanks.

Is there any risk at all that other countries would be impacted - either my changing IP address ranges or malfunction of this setting?

Paul

[wjcampbe]

Yes, there is risk that you can make an error in setting this up. There is also the possibility that people in your banned countries can use a proxy server elsewhere to bypass your block.

For more information, do an internet search on 'limit GET' and 'setting a proxy'.