Comments on: What You Should Know About Credit Card Chargebacks — guest post

By: Auguste Dubuisson

Auguste Dubuisson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:53:42 +0000

That depends on the bank that you have. Bank of America would initiate a temporary charge on your account during the period of the dispute. If they win, the the temporary fund will be permanent, but if they lose, they will take the money back from your account. They win most of the time.

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:42:06 +0000

Even though you have to give the merchant thirty days to refund your money, don’t wait a month to let the credit card company know about the problem.

They usually will put a hold on the charge, if they know it’s in dispute. This means you don’t have to pay it until the matter is resolved.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:12:17 +0000

I’ve never had a problem doing a chargeback on a normal CC, but I have had an issue doing a chargeback on a debit/visa card before. They are a lot stricter with those it seems.

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:06:19 +0000

Re: CC control issues

That reminds me, the store where I work used to have a customer who was charging hundreds of dollars at a time over a period of months.

We (the employees) were suspicious, but didn’t see anything we could do.

Turned out the card was not valid and
the store was not paid for the charges. Turned out the authorization number was the same every time – the guy came in on different days and shifts to disperse his charges among different employees – and our CC software was approving the transactions.

So we’re fighting with the software vendor over the loss. What’s the outcome in similar situations?

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:56:44 +0000

So I take it then that the threshold is a PERCENTAGE, and it can take only a few chargebacks to hit it if you do few charges?

What’s to stop a small malicious group (e.g. a competitor’s employees, or a group with a political agenda (e.g. opposed to selling fur) from targeting a merchant?

By: RacerX

RacerX — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:57:17 +0000

Hitting that threshold is usually due to two things: A business with CC control issues (like bad software or people) or a small business that doesn’t do many charges.

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:26:19 +0000

Yeah, merchants have a strong incentive to avoid chargebacks.

There is a database, a term, and an acronym (I forget what it’s called). Basically, a merchant who gets terminated for too many chargebacks gets added to this database where they become basically persona non grata and nobody else will give them a merchant account. Unlike ChexSystems, this is a database you DON’T drop out of after five years.

By: Dad

Dad — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:19:29 +0000

Pretty good analysis of the situation. If you don’t get immediate satisfaction from the merchant, contact your credit card company quickly to register your dispute. There is a federally mandated 60 day window from getting your statement in which you have to initiate a dispute. Ask the company what you should do. THey may tell you to mail or fax a dispute form usually part of your statement. This will protect your rights under federal law. If you haven’t done this and the time expires, Visa or Master card can say sorry, the time is up. You also need to be aware of the merchant’s return policy up front. If they have a no return policy, you may have trouble getting a refund for a bad product. Non delivery and billing issues don’t count in this, they can always be disputed. But unsatisfactory or overpriced merchandise or service may be subject to the return policy. Read before you order.