I’m supplying an abandoned accounting package called erecord, for a small fee of $14 (payable via paypal).

Over the last 2 years, I have had many hundreds of people download erecord.

And I am totally amazed at how many people just cannot do a simple task like type in their email addresses ( about 25% get it wrong ! ! ! )

What usually happens is: I get an email that someone like joe123@gmail.com has just purchased erecord.

Since the software is fully automated, I know that this person will get an email that gives them instructions on how to download erecord.

Then, after a few days/weeks, I sometimes get a brief email from the customer, saying something like:

I purchased erecord on date xyz

I have yet to receive the download instructions. Send me the download instructions ASAP

First off, I check that they actually paid: and often I find that the automated confirmation email I got was from, say, joe123@gmail.com, yet the “wheres my download” email might be from joe124@gmail.com

This is a simple (yet amazingly common) typing error. To correct it, I ask the customer to confirm their payment details, and then I send the download email to the new email address (and updating my website database with the new address)

Other times, its worse: the email arrives from joe.blue@yahoo.com, and the customer has lost all access to the old email in their paypal account.

That means that they have some serious problems with their paypal account, that needs fixing before it becomes a security risk.

However, I can still send the download email to the “new” email.

I’m still surprised at how often people make typing errors while doing financial transactions over the internet.

I’d hate to think what would happen if people had to enter the payment amount manually… id get payments varying from $0.14 upt to $1400 !!!