4 ms·

As someone with an online business, I welcome this. 99% of the chargebacks we see are first party fraud. We lose these disputes even after providing evidence.

As someone with an online business, I welcome this. 99% of the chargebacks we see are first party fraud. We lose these disputes even after providing evidence. We've found and submitted Instagram posts of the customer wearing the item they claim to have "not ordered" or "never received". We've had customers communicate with us how much they "love" the item after receiving it, only to file a first party fraud related chargeback months later. No matter what evidence we provide, they always side with the customer. I don't know what world people are living in, but as a business we have never won a chargeback dispute.

metadat 4y ago
If you are being honest, why are you posting this using a brand new / throwaway account?
- mlyle 4y ago
  > If you are being honest, why are you posting this using a throwaway account? Maybe he's new? edit: I see you edited your phrasing to make it nicer, but... It looks like the dude posted under his real name (with a handle that he uses many other places).
  - metadat 4y ago
    An odd time to finally decide to join HN. With no account history, how can the community distinguish between legitimate discourse and shills for a controversial big business agenda story like this? This is the kind of story that gets picked up by HN first and then ends up published in mainstream media the following week. Anyhow, I don't defend cardholder fraud, and at the same time I've been ripped off too many times by merchants. They tend to err on the side of themselves, perpetually fleecing masses of real-life flesh and blood human beings. @mlyle: I appreciate you taking the time to dig into it more and raise the controversy to my attention. This is a helpful way to be, you are great.
    - mlyle 4y ago
      People tend to join when an issue that's important to them comes up. Everyone (retailers, consumers) unhappy with the chargeback system. Honest merchants lose lots of money all the time. It can be difficult to make a chargeback for many kinds of dark patterns (e.g. subscription traps). The fact that everyone's mad makes me think it may not be too tilted against any party, but one would hope it could work better overall. > @mlyle: I appreciate you taking the time to dig into it more and raise the controversy to my attention. This is a helpful way to be, you are great. I have a hard time with benefit-of-the-doubt here and get reprimanded a fair bit. :D Just doing my best to improve things where I can.
      - gregmac 4y ago
        > The fact that everyone's mad makes me think it may not be too tilted against any party "A good compromise leaves everybody mad" - https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/05/01 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/05/01
      - lukesmith82 4y ago
        I've been reading HN for nearly a decade and never commented, but mlyle has it spot on: this is an important issue to me and nearly all the commentary here was one sided.
        rvz 4y ago
        Thank you for your comment and perspective on this. It is more likely that most of the comments are from consumers that (secretly) actually do chargeback fraud themselves and have not run a small business and also want merchants, and businesses like yourself to lose all the time. I see it in digital subscriptions, influencers doing it and even users trying to lie their way into getting the service or product for free and the chargebacks hurt both the consumer and the merchant. It is indeed an important issue that must be tackled.
        mlyle 4y ago
gregmac 4y ago
Maybe I'm naïve, but The type of person that does this seems like the type of person that would do this regularly. That is to say: files a large number of chargebacks, with similar reasons, likely facing merchant disputes with evidence. It really seems like there should be some heuristics applied to the consumer: if some significant percent of transactions (either number or dollar amount) are charge-backs, something is probably wrong that warrants closer investigation. Someone filing one chargeback per every thousand or more transactions is not trying to scam anyone. Someone who charges-back 50% or more of the transactions they make at online clothing merchants, on the other hand, definitely is. I wonder if there's just no incentive for the card issuers to do this?
- hnburnsy 4y ago
  I agree, I wonder if those doing the frequent and fraudulent charge backs are paying 1000s in credit card interest yearly, and are actually good customers for the banks.

metadat 4y ago

If you are being honest, why are you posting this using a brand new / throwaway account?

mlyle 4y ago
> If you are being honest, why are you posting this using a throwaway account? Maybe he's new? edit: I see you edited your phrasing to make it nicer, but... It looks like the dude posted under his real name (with a handle that he uses many other places).
- metadat 4y ago
  An odd time to finally decide to join HN. With no account history, how can the community distinguish between legitimate discourse and shills for a controversial big business agenda story like this? This is the kind of story that gets picked up by HN first and then ends up published in mainstream media the following week. Anyhow, I don't defend cardholder fraud, and at the same time I've been ripped off too many times by merchants. They tend to err on the side of themselves, perpetually fleecing masses of real-life flesh and blood human beings. @mlyle: I appreciate you taking the time to dig into it more and raise the controversy to my attention. This is a helpful way to be, you are great.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    People tend to join when an issue that's important to them comes up. Everyone (retailers, consumers) unhappy with the chargeback system. Honest merchants lose lots of money all the time. It can be difficult to make a chargeback for many kinds of dark patterns (e.g. subscription traps). The fact that everyone's mad makes me think it may not be too tilted against any party, but one would hope it could work better overall. > @mlyle: I appreciate you taking the time to dig into it more and raise the controversy to my attention. This is a helpful way to be, you are great. I have a hard time with benefit-of-the-doubt here and get reprimanded a fair bit. :D Just doing my best to improve things where I can.
    - gregmac 4y ago
      > The fact that everyone's mad makes me think it may not be too tilted against any party "A good compromise leaves everybody mad" - https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/05/01 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/05/01
    - lukesmith82 4y ago
      I've been reading HN for nearly a decade and never commented, but mlyle has it spot on: this is an important issue to me and nearly all the commentary here was one sided.
      - rvz 4y ago
        Thank you for your comment and perspective on this. It is more likely that most of the comments are from consumers that (secretly) actually do chargeback fraud themselves and have not run a small business and also want merchants, and businesses like yourself to lose all the time. I see it in digital subscriptions, influencers doing it and even users trying to lie their way into getting the service or product for free and the chargebacks hurt both the consumer and the merchant. It is indeed an important issue that must be tackled.
        mlyle 4y ago

gregmac 4y ago

Maybe I'm naïve, but The type of person that does this seems like the type of person that would do this regularly. That is to say: files a large number of chargebacks, with similar reasons, likely facing merchant disputes with evidence. It really seems like there should be some heuristics applied to the consumer: if some significant percent of transactions (either number or dollar amount) are charge-backs, something is probably wrong that warrants closer investigation. Someone filing one chargeback per every thousand or more transactions is not trying to scam anyone. Someone who charges-back 50% or more of the transactions they make at online clothing merchants, on the other hand, definitely is. I wonder if there's just no incentive for the card issuers to do this?

hnburnsy 4y ago
I agree, I wonder if those doing the frequent and fraudulent charge backs are paying 1000s in credit card interest yearly, and are actually good customers for the banks.