How to stop "customer" abuse?

I've got a team of kids buying products, filling out false names, emails, etc...then opting to pay by check/mo. They never do pay. They are just being brats. They just keep ordering products which messes with my inventory count, etc.

Is there any way to stop this abuse in Zen Cart? I'm having to go in, delete the fake customers, wipe out the emails...which is easy but I'm doing it every day of the week, a few times a day!

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

:censored:

Zen Cart will record their IP addresses with their "orders". If they're always operating from the same IPs then there are threads elsewhere on this forum about blocking traffic from known IP addresses.

The obvious suggestion would be to stop accepting checks and money orders unless a significant number of your regular customers want to pay that way.

Other than that, assuming it's the same kids all the time, you could block their IP addresses - might slow them down, anyway.

You could catch their IP addresses, and report the abuse to their ISP's giving the required evidence.

ISP's can close accounts of abusive internet users.

If they manage to identify any of the culprits in person and report the details to you, report the activity as a deliberate attempt at fraud. This is then a criminal matter, and might be taken up by the police.

Thanks everyone for good suggestions. I appreciate your feedback!

I sell downloadable files and advertise instant downloads for those who pay immediately with Paypal.

In order to accommodate overseas customers, I used to have a payment method similar to check/money order. I found that several of the customers were "testing" the site to see if they can choose that payment mode and instantly download the files they purchase.

After a year or 2 of the same thing happening, I finally took the payment method out. Serious customers contact me instead via email.