Accepting Input From Anonymous Users and How Companies Like redbox Get It Wrong.

I wrote a kiosk application a couple of months ago for a customer. This wasn’t an Internet kiosk where I had to get a browser up and running securely, this was a specialty application that gathered customer information, including email addresses, and attached that information to a rewards card number then allowed the customer to view their current rewards points. Sounds simple enough, and it was.

Which leads me to another soapbox. It seems that as a group we developers still don’t get “it”, so I’m going to say it again, in bold.

Anonymous users cannot be trusted.

About a week ago I began receiving emails to one of my accounts from the DVD rental company redbox (http://redbox.com/). They have kiosks up all over the US and possibly more. As I understand it these kiosks work by allowing you to swipe a credit card, then taking some personal information including email address, then allowing you to rent a DVD movie. Every time you rent or return a movie they send you an email. I’ve now received several. This all seems fairly straightforward.

Except that I’m not a redbox customer, nor have I ever been. The last four digits of the credit card being used aren’t a card that I own, and I don’t see that there has been a card issued in my name that I don’t have in my possession. This pretty much rules out fraud. Odds are that the person who’s account this actually is just fat-fingered punching in the email address (this is an msn account that I’ve kept around for years to send spam to).

In an attempt to straighten this problem out I called redbox’s customer service number listed in the email body. Their response was to just mark their email as spam. A company actually asked me to flag their emails as junk. I was floored. I pointed out to the customer service agent that the “solution” might present two problems: first, the real customer still wasn’t getting their alerts and second, it would pretty much preclude me from ever becoming a redbox customer because I also wouldn’t get my notices. She insisted that was the best redbox could do and that there was simply no way to fix a customer record.

So I sent an email to the customer service email address at the bottom of the receipts I was receiving. I received an automated reply saying that if I wanted to unsubscribe that all I needed to do was click the link at the bottom of their emails. Great idea! Now if only there was an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the emails that redbox sends.

So here we stand, no resolution in sight. As a note to other developers, and redbox (should you ever read this), here is what you need to add to your application for your customers, both current and potential:

1. When a new customer signs up and gives you an email address, send out a verification email. Make sure that your system requires a response before the email is marked as valid. Don’t send other emails to that address until it has been confirmed.

2. If the user hasn’t confirmed by the time they use your application again then prompt them that their email address is still unconfirmed and ask them to either click the confirmation link or enter their correct email address.

3. Be sure that your system is capable of marking an existing email as invalid. When the user with the invalidated email address uses your system the next time you simply request an updated email address, then proceed with step #1 above.

See, that wasn’t so hard. Now if someone puts garbage into your system it should work itself out right from the start. If it doesn’t you at least have a way to take out the trash. Or you could just have one customer wondering where their receipts are and a potential customer blogging about how poor your customer service is.