8 ms·

This is kind of OP's fault, right? I don't think it was appropriate to initiate a charge back on a payment to affirm since they provided their service to OP, th

This is kind of OP's fault, right? I don't think it was appropriate to initiate a charge back on a payment to affirm since they provided their service to OP, that is they already paid for whatever OP was buying. I have a feeling that timing between OP opening the chargeback and the shipping of the item was actually coincidental. I'd think if you paid affirm and the merchant hadn't shipped the item, then your recourse would be to go to Affirm, not your credit card you used to pay affirm.

mymllnthaccount 5y ago
Just to add to this, it sounds like OP didn't contact Affirm until after they already started the charge back. I definitely don't think it is appropriate to do a charge back before contacting the vendor that got the payment, which is Affirm.
- aembleton 5y ago
  My credit card won't even let me initiate a chargeback until I've contacted the retailer.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    Cards that are higher up in benefits and fees in the US will.
  - harles 5y ago
    OP contacted the retailer according to the story. Affirm is not a retailer.
    - jonny_eh 5y ago
      They are the party receiving the chargeback though. It's just usually the retailer that you pay directly.
deleted 5y ago
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jackconsidine 5y ago
Respectively disagree, but regardless the customer service flow is unacceptable and most of the point of the post IMO.
crisopolis 5y ago
I agree it does read like the OP triggered the entire issue with payments using a chargeback originating from Chase, regardless of the support/platform issues with Affirm. I don't believe charging back the loan provider had any outcome to getting their product/service. Affirm was the wrong target.
- pooper 5y ago
  I have done a charge back against PayPal and I stand by it. Basically, the vendor said it shipped me the product but never did. However, it gave PayPal a tracking number which was for something delivered to my town. I waited several months for the vendor to make things right. I asked PayPal and the person said there is nothing it can do. I did a charge back and the bank gave me my money back. So no, screw the vendors and screw the payment processors. I don't owe them anything. It is their responsibility to do things right or get a charge back.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    > I asked PayPal and the person said there is nothing it can do That's PayPal's fault then. If they don't make things right, you're justified to hold them to account.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Who should OP have targeted? The seller wasn't responding and OP had no way to force them to other than charging back against affirm.
  - ensignavenger 5y ago
    OP could have initiated the chargeback through Affirm. I have used this process with Affirm before with much better luck. That being said, this does not excuse Affirms alleged poor customer service in this situation.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
bena 5y ago
I used Affirm for a Casper mattress back in the day. Much the same scenario, it said "make X payments in Y months" and I was like "Ok". I think that's Affirm's wheelhouse, providing smaller merchants of largish ticket items an easy way to do financing. So OP may not have had an option outside of Affirm to do the financing. I'm not sure how much Affirm would care about the issue as they're pretty much a 3rd party to the entire situation. But, yeah, I think the order of operations here would be: call merchant, call Affirm, then call credit card.
- benatkin 5y ago
  Plenty of people think Casper is pure junk. I understand taking a gamble, though... https://www.reddit.com/r/Mattress/comments/ejx6za/my_casper_experience/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Mattress/comments/ejx6za/my_casper_... I guess it would have been smart for OP to think of that purchase as an attempt to get that item from that merchant, and just to eat the $ rather than spend a lot of time and get their credit dinged. It isn't totally different from getting a physical mattress that may or may not work, especially since they eventually did ship the item. Actually, if the mattress caused back pain and I had to go through the trouble of disposing it, that would be worse than getting nothing.
  - bena 5y ago
    What? We don't know if he bought a mattress or not. I did. Years ago. And the fact that people online don't like Casper is neither here nor there. It's fine. It's a mattress. It's better than a spring mattress. I merely brought it up because I used Affirm to purchase it because that was the option given to me by Casper for their "pay in X in Y months" option.
aunty_helen 5y ago
What? How are you going to charge back against someone you didn't actually deal with financially? Your arguement is that Affirm should be able to clip the ticket and hold no responsibility for their client fufilling their duties? The charge back goes to who you paid for a service, if they need to pass it on, it's for them to do.
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  I cannot say anything wrt this specific case but it definitely depends. Where I'm from you'd basically make 2 contracts: one purchase agreement and then another one for the money, which is basically just a credit you've gotta pay back. So here you'd have to contact the seller, as the other party merely gave you a credit with hopefully good terms
  - syedkarim 5y ago
    Where are you from?
    - 0des 5y ago
      Asking that is a precursor to violence where some of us are from as it's an understood "what colors do you fly" type of question.
    - tionis 5y ago
      What OP describes sounds like the German systems with the abstraction system I think it's called.
- jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
  Author never disputed the transaction with Affirm, he just went straight to chargeback after getting nowhere with the merchant.
  - aunty_helen 5y ago
    > and they were unresponsive to my requests for a shipping date There wasn’t an issue with Affirm not paying the money onward, why go to them. Once again, Affirm have agreed to give credit to this company, that relationship is theirs. If their client isn’t fulfilling their duties it’s Affirms problem too. Credit cards work like this, you pay your 2-4% fee and you’re guaranteed what you expected to receive. Hence why airlines changing peoples tickets out for credit during the pandemic was easily routed around via a cc charge back. I literally had the Turkish government change the law on my ticket to say the airline didn’t have to fly me but could swap my ticket for credit and I still made it away with my money in the end.
harles 5y ago
Yikes, I can’t believe all the comments blaming OP. It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms, not OP. Charge backs also have a limited window to claim - I can’t see anything that was done wrong here by OP. Yes, OP could’ve attempted to resolve with affirm up front, but why should that be necessary?
- kube-system 5y ago
  > It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms Yes, and that's why the payment to the retailer should have been the one in dispute, not the loan payment to Affirm. This is how it always works when you finance through a third party... it works the same way for a car loan, a mortgage, a credit card, etc.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    How do you dispute a charge that took place between Affirm and the delinquent merchant? Affirm has your money. Affirms partner hasn't delivered on your merchandise. Affirm by being the one in possession of your money for which you have received nothing is the one in breach of your agreement and has no power to enforce terms for an agreement it has violated.
    - dwild 5y ago
      How do you charge back usually? You contact your credit card provider right? You don't just avoid paying your credit card... you contact the ones that credited you the money. In this case this is Affirm the creditor (I know you got 2 credits here, but that's a choice). You got 2 contracts here, one to pay back a loan, an another with the merchant, and sadly, when you don't pay back a credit, it get on your credit report... So the one to contact, is Affirm, just like the one to contact in case of issue with a payment you made, is your credit card provider, and not your bank.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        Ok so this is what an affirm transaction looks like. You go to bobsite it says you can have a widget by paying now or if you click this radio button and select affirm there will be a only slightly different flow where you without leaving bobs site you agree to pay for it over time with the same payment card you have on file with bobsite for regular purchases. Click Complete purchase done. Your money flows from you -> affirm -> merchant in a singular transaction that is actuated by several automatically scheduled payments at the appointed dates. No transaction flowed between you -> merchant to charge back. Given that actually litigating a dispute in multiple states would be thousands of dollars your only actual options are let them keep all your money even if they are in effect defrauding you OR issue a chargeback to the party that collected your money and let THEM handle retrieving any money transferred from them to the merchant who ultimately didn't fulfill their duty. You will note that due to the high cost of retrieving your money the merchant has absolutely no reason not to just keep your money and ignore your phone calls. They after all already have the money they were going to make off you. It cannot afford to not pick up the phone for Affirm because it intends to via its continuing relationship to continue making money. Fundamentally every transaction you undertake is intermediated usually through a multitude of levels whoever actually takes your money be it affirm or walmart has no right to be paid if the goods aren't delivered and acquires in addition to your money the obligation of making the customer whole first and then seeking redress up the food chain. This is only untrue when there are two distinct different not directly related transactions. Get a generic credit card and use it to buy a TV for example. It would make little sense for chase to expect to be paid $500,000 for a house it turned out the seller had no right to sell or $50,000 for a car that was never delivered due to mischance. In both cases even though you had agreed to borrow that money the transaction would be unwound and not merely by you. This unwinding in case of a failure by merchant to deliver product financed is an expected part of such an interaction in part because such transactions almost always concern a great deal of money. A situation whereby a singular purchase actuated by a button click is treated as 2 distinct transactions with virtually no recourse for any sort of misbehavior violates decades of consumer expectations and the ground rules under which we all presently do business. It is surprising and harmful.
deleted 5y ago
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mymllnthaccount 5y ago

Just to add to this, it sounds like OP didn't contact Affirm until after they already started the charge back. I definitely don't think it is appropriate to do a charge back before contacting the vendor that got the payment, which is Affirm.

aembleton 5y ago
My credit card won't even let me initiate a chargeback until I've contacted the retailer.
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  Cards that are higher up in benefits and fees in the US will.
- harles 5y ago
  OP contacted the retailer according to the story. Affirm is not a retailer.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    They are the party receiving the chargeback though. It's just usually the retailer that you pay directly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jackconsidine 5y ago

Respectively disagree, but regardless the customer service flow is unacceptable and most of the point of the post IMO.

crisopolis 5y ago

I agree it does read like the OP triggered the entire issue with payments using a chargeback originating from Chase, regardless of the support/platform issues with Affirm. I don't believe charging back the loan provider had any outcome to getting their product/service. Affirm was the wrong target.

pooper 5y ago
I have done a charge back against PayPal and I stand by it. Basically, the vendor said it shipped me the product but never did. However, it gave PayPal a tracking number which was for something delivered to my town. I waited several months for the vendor to make things right. I asked PayPal and the person said there is nothing it can do. I did a charge back and the bank gave me my money back. So no, screw the vendors and screw the payment processors. I don't owe them anything. It is their responsibility to do things right or get a charge back.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > I asked PayPal and the person said there is nothing it can do That's PayPal's fault then. If they don't make things right, you're justified to hold them to account.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Who should OP have targeted? The seller wasn't responding and OP had no way to force them to other than charging back against affirm.
- ensignavenger 5y ago
  OP could have initiated the chargeback through Affirm. I have used this process with Affirm before with much better luck. That being said, this does not excuse Affirms alleged poor customer service in this situation.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago

bena 5y ago

I used Affirm for a Casper mattress back in the day. Much the same scenario, it said "make X payments in Y months" and I was like "Ok". I think that's Affirm's wheelhouse, providing smaller merchants of largish ticket items an easy way to do financing. So OP may not have had an option outside of Affirm to do the financing. I'm not sure how much Affirm would care about the issue as they're pretty much a 3rd party to the entire situation. But, yeah, I think the order of operations here would be: call merchant, call Affirm, then call credit card.

benatkin 5y ago
Plenty of people think Casper is pure junk. I understand taking a gamble, though... https://www.reddit.com/r/Mattress/comments/ejx6za/my_casper_experience/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Mattress/comments/ejx6za/my_casper_... I guess it would have been smart for OP to think of that purchase as an attempt to get that item from that merchant, and just to eat the $ rather than spend a lot of time and get their credit dinged. It isn't totally different from getting a physical mattress that may or may not work, especially since they eventually did ship the item. Actually, if the mattress caused back pain and I had to go through the trouble of disposing it, that would be worse than getting nothing.
- bena 5y ago
  What? We don't know if he bought a mattress or not. I did. Years ago. And the fact that people online don't like Casper is neither here nor there. It's fine. It's a mattress. It's better than a spring mattress. I merely brought it up because I used Affirm to purchase it because that was the option given to me by Casper for their "pay in X in Y months" option.

aunty_helen 5y ago

What? How are you going to charge back against someone you didn't actually deal with financially? Your arguement is that Affirm should be able to clip the ticket and hold no responsibility for their client fufilling their duties? The charge back goes to who you paid for a service, if they need to pass it on, it's for them to do.

411111111111111 5y ago
I cannot say anything wrt this specific case but it definitely depends. Where I'm from you'd basically make 2 contracts: one purchase agreement and then another one for the money, which is basically just a credit you've gotta pay back. So here you'd have to contact the seller, as the other party merely gave you a credit with hopefully good terms
- syedkarim 5y ago
  Where are you from?
  - 0des 5y ago
    Asking that is a precursor to violence where some of us are from as it's an understood "what colors do you fly" type of question.
  - tionis 5y ago
    What OP describes sounds like the German systems with the abstraction system I think it's called.
jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
Author never disputed the transaction with Affirm, he just went straight to chargeback after getting nowhere with the merchant.
- aunty_helen 5y ago
  > and they were unresponsive to my requests for a shipping date There wasn’t an issue with Affirm not paying the money onward, why go to them. Once again, Affirm have agreed to give credit to this company, that relationship is theirs. If their client isn’t fulfilling their duties it’s Affirms problem too. Credit cards work like this, you pay your 2-4% fee and you’re guaranteed what you expected to receive. Hence why airlines changing peoples tickets out for credit during the pandemic was easily routed around via a cc charge back. I literally had the Turkish government change the law on my ticket to say the airline didn’t have to fly me but could swap my ticket for credit and I still made it away with my money in the end.

harles 5y ago

Yikes, I can’t believe all the comments blaming OP. It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms, not OP. Charge backs also have a limited window to claim - I can’t see anything that was done wrong here by OP. Yes, OP could’ve attempted to resolve with affirm up front, but why should that be necessary?

kube-system 5y ago
> It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms Yes, and that's why the payment to the retailer should have been the one in dispute, not the loan payment to Affirm. This is how it always works when you finance through a third party... it works the same way for a car loan, a mortgage, a credit card, etc.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  How do you dispute a charge that took place between Affirm and the delinquent merchant? Affirm has your money. Affirms partner hasn't delivered on your merchandise. Affirm by being the one in possession of your money for which you have received nothing is the one in breach of your agreement and has no power to enforce terms for an agreement it has violated.
  - dwild 5y ago
    How do you charge back usually? You contact your credit card provider right? You don't just avoid paying your credit card... you contact the ones that credited you the money. In this case this is Affirm the creditor (I know you got 2 credits here, but that's a choice). You got 2 contracts here, one to pay back a loan, an another with the merchant, and sadly, when you don't pay back a credit, it get on your credit report... So the one to contact, is Affirm, just like the one to contact in case of issue with a payment you made, is your credit card provider, and not your bank.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Ok so this is what an affirm transaction looks like. You go to bobsite it says you can have a widget by paying now or if you click this radio button and select affirm there will be a only slightly different flow where you without leaving bobs site you agree to pay for it over time with the same payment card you have on file with bobsite for regular purchases. Click Complete purchase done. Your money flows from you -> affirm -> merchant in a singular transaction that is actuated by several automatically scheduled payments at the appointed dates. No transaction flowed between you -> merchant to charge back. Given that actually litigating a dispute in multiple states would be thousands of dollars your only actual options are let them keep all your money even if they are in effect defrauding you OR issue a chargeback to the party that collected your money and let THEM handle retrieving any money transferred from them to the merchant who ultimately didn't fulfill their duty. You will note that due to the high cost of retrieving your money the merchant has absolutely no reason not to just keep your money and ignore your phone calls. They after all already have the money they were going to make off you. It cannot afford to not pick up the phone for Affirm because it intends to via its continuing relationship to continue making money. Fundamentally every transaction you undertake is intermediated usually through a multitude of levels whoever actually takes your money be it affirm or walmart has no right to be paid if the goods aren't delivered and acquires in addition to your money the obligation of making the customer whole first and then seeking redress up the food chain. This is only untrue when there are two distinct different not directly related transactions. Get a generic credit card and use it to buy a TV for example. It would make little sense for chase to expect to be paid $500,000 for a house it turned out the seller had no right to sell or $50,000 for a car that was never delivered due to mischance. In both cases even though you had agreed to borrow that money the transaction would be unwound and not merely by you. This unwinding in case of a failure by merchant to deliver product financed is an expected part of such an interaction in part because such transactions almost always concern a great deal of money. A situation whereby a singular purchase actuated by a button click is treated as 2 distinct transactions with virtually no recourse for any sort of misbehavior violates decades of consumer expectations and the ground rules under which we all presently do business. It is surprising and harmful.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]