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I just had a similar experience. While looking to buy a $400 item, I found someone with the item in stock who was willing to ship (note: not in the USA, many m

by brc 16y ago

I just had a similar experience. While looking to buy a $400 item, I found someone with the item in stock who was willing to ship (note: not in the USA, many merchants will not ship internationally, including Amazon on big-ticket items). After some back-and-forth, the order was placed, and this small online retailer had my business. But then - 5 days after the order was placed - an email came back. We want an international wire transfer instead of mastercard payment. No way, I said - a wire transfer is a black hole where I have no comebak. I offered a PayPal payment instead. No, they said, wire transfer or nothing. I cannot for the life of me understand this logic. It's not like I'm buying and shipping to Nigeria or some other known fraud location. If it was about mastercard fees, I would have happily paid a 2 or 3% surcharge. It still would have been cheaper than having to drive to my bank, sit in a queue, organise forms and pay $20 for a wire transfer. So the answer was no credit card, no sale, and they didn't get the sale. The sale instead went to a combination of Amazon and a third-party freight forwarding company. The combined price was about the same as the original merchant. Why anyone would offer to ship internationally and then request a wire transfer is beyond me. Either shun international purchases (eg zappos) or welcome them properly.

netcan 16y ago
The problem is that in markets where goods are resalable, a very large portion of sales are fraudulent. Being out of country makes the fraud likelihood even higher. With paypal or mastercard payments, merchants have no protection because of chargebacks. Basically, after a fraud/non delivery/stolen CC allegation CC companies and paypal will pull that money from the merchant's account and fully refund the customer pretty much immediately and without question. It's usually impossible or impractical to reverse that once it has happened, regardless of what evidence you have. Police will not investigate and the CC company won't hear your case. I have had a client that personally delivered and item and got a signature. When the chargeback claim came (non delivery), he recorded a phone conversation with the recipient where she admitted (she was "tricked") to the fraud. The police told him (after a lot of badgering) that they get about 100X as many claims as they can investigate. Basically, for all but relatively high stakes cases, they just log the complaint and move on. There really is no way for retailers to protect themselves.
- brc 16y ago
  I'm well aware of the difficulties with doing business internationally - over 90% of my income comes from outside my borders. I've gotten fraudulent chargebacks and grit my teeth and move on. Sure, selling a $1000 laptop to someone in Nigeria is asking for trouble, but for other countries with strong legal systems and a low incidence of fraud I would seriously question the accepted wisdom of international sales == higher fraud. So if you don't want to deal out of the country, say you don't. Putting some fine print buried in your website saying 'we only accept wire transfer for international orders above x' but still accepting CC in the cart is bad customer service. It's a crappy experience for the customer and it wastes time for everyone, merchant included. This is my point. Statistically, I bet for delivery to certain countries, the chargebacks would be no different to domestic deliveries in terms of fraud per 1000 sales. The credit cards are there to protect the customer from fraudulent merchants just as much as the reverse. My point is : either accept the risk (price it in if you have to) or advertise that you don't ship internationally. This is what Zappos does - they want to create an excellent experience, so they only ship within the USA. Don't create a crappy experience for a customer in the off-hand hope that someone might decide to get caught in a bait-and-switch payment scenario.

by brc 16y ago

netcan 16y ago

The problem is that in markets where goods are resalable, a very large portion of sales are fraudulent. Being out of country makes the fraud likelihood even higher. With paypal or mastercard payments, merchants have no protection because of chargebacks. Basically, after a fraud/non delivery/stolen CC allegation CC companies and paypal will pull that money from the merchant's account and fully refund the customer pretty much immediately and without question. It's usually impossible or impractical to reverse that once it has happened, regardless of what evidence you have. Police will not investigate and the CC company won't hear your case. I have had a client that personally delivered and item and got a signature. When the chargeback claim came (non delivery), he recorded a phone conversation with the recipient where she admitted (she was "tricked") to the fraud. The police told him (after a lot of badgering) that they get about 100X as many claims as they can investigate. Basically, for all but relatively high stakes cases, they just log the complaint and move on. There really is no way for retailers to protect themselves.

brc 16y ago
I'm well aware of the difficulties with doing business internationally - over 90% of my income comes from outside my borders. I've gotten fraudulent chargebacks and grit my teeth and move on. Sure, selling a $1000 laptop to someone in Nigeria is asking for trouble, but for other countries with strong legal systems and a low incidence of fraud I would seriously question the accepted wisdom of international sales == higher fraud. So if you don't want to deal out of the country, say you don't. Putting some fine print buried in your website saying 'we only accept wire transfer for international orders above x' but still accepting CC in the cart is bad customer service. It's a crappy experience for the customer and it wastes time for everyone, merchant included. This is my point. Statistically, I bet for delivery to certain countries, the chargebacks would be no different to domestic deliveries in terms of fraud per 1000 sales. The credit cards are there to protect the customer from fraudulent merchants just as much as the reverse. My point is : either accept the risk (price it in if you have to) or advertise that you don't ship internationally. This is what Zappos does - they want to create an excellent experience, so they only ship within the USA. Don't create a crappy experience for a customer in the off-hand hope that someone might decide to get caught in a bait-and-switch payment scenario.