Invoice number out of order

This has happened twice in a couple of months and the last time was this morning.

I got a customer who emailed me that she was not getting an email with her download links. She tried her account history and there was still no download link. I ended up having to email her the file she paid for. I had gotten an invoice copy and a paypal notification of paiement. However, even on the back end, i could not find record of her purchase, and i had also noticed that the invoice number was totally out of order from the previous orders.

This morning, i noticed one order with again, a number that was odd (previous orders were #3528,#3529,#3530, but the next one was #1315). I immediately emailed the customer to check if she did get a download link and sure enough, she didn't, and she could not get it from her account either.

If i search for the specific order ID, it displays an order that was made months ago, by someone totally different, with totally different order.

Any idea what is going on and how to avoid that in the future?

How are they getting to your shop??

Maybe from a link somewhere that contains a zenid??

From my stats, i can see that she came directly to the main page of the store.
I also searched for the customer's name, and she does not exist in the list, a bit like a ghost, who made a ghost purchase. At least, i got real money through Paypal!

she came directly to the main page of the store
But maybe from a link??

I dont know. My StatCounter says that customer came from a direct link and landed on the main page of the store.
How else can i figure out where she came from? "Direct link" can mean from a bookmark, from a link directly typed (or copied).

A link to your shop

http://creationcassel.com/store/
That is my store and that is the page she landed on in the first place.

I checked with the person and she said she just did a Google search for "scripts paint shop pro". (if it helps)

I got another 2 invoices from another user (a new customer) and again, the order number was out of order. Actually, it is in order AFTER the previous one that was out of order, so i had invoice 1315 before and today, i got 1316 and 1316, while the invoices from yesterday were in the 3500. And sure enough, the customer emailed me because she has no download link, and looking in the admin side, the order was never registered. In this case it was two orders with s $0 total so no Paypal issue. Not only the order was not registered but the customer is not registered.

It looks as if some customers are "zombies" and are just invisible in the store, and their orders too.
Any other explaination? Or solution (that would be even better)?

Anyone has any suggestion/explanation for this?

Do you have an old copy of your site at another folder?
Perhaps they're finding that old site and are shopping there instead of on your real true live site?

In their order-confirmation email, does it give a clickable URL link for them to access their My Account section? Or a link to the store in the email footer? That could give you a clue to whatever other folder they were actually shopping in.

GENIUS!!!!! that is what happened! I can see they shopped in the "test store" instead of the real one!
Now, would you have a suggestion as how to make the test store "disabled" for customers but still accessible for me so i can run whatever tests?

A couple things

1. to stop them from using it, Put it "Down for maintenance". Admin->Configuration->Website maintenance -- first option, set to true.

2. but if search engines have indexed that site, then you should move it to another foldername and password-protect the folder so they can't keep using it. And then in the "test" folder (whatever folder they're shopping in now), set up a redirect to point them to your real store ... that way you won't lose traffic from what search engines have already indexed.

Thank you for this information. I will do that. Or at the worst, i can redirect customers to the correct store if it happens before i get all that fixed. :)

CaroleAs:

GENIUS!!!!!

I'll say! (You probably have no idea what it would have taken to come up with this idea). Kudos DrByte.

CaroleAs:

Now, would you have a suggestion as how to make the test store "disabled" for customers but still accessible for me so i can run whatever tests?

Under the admin configuration down_for_maintenance options is a setting
"Down For Maintenance (exclude this IP-Address)". Just enter your own IP address here.

Having said that, my testing preference is to password protect the test site (using .htaccess) rather than place it in maintenance mode.

Cheers
Rod

Chalk it up to experience. Had it happen to me once. :)