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> Whether you win or lose a dispute, card networks charge Stripe a fee in either case. To cover these costs, starting June 1, Stripe will no longer return the $

> Whether you win or lose a dispute, card networks charge Stripe a fee in either case. To cover these costs, starting June 1, Stripe will no longer return the $15 dispute fee for successfully contested disputes. The dispute fee itself is not changing." Chargebacks drive me absolutely insane and it's not even my money (it's through a service I provide). These people come and use the service, get goods, etc then issue a chargeback and WIN even though I can lay out a perfect timeline of their actions. I write/run event payment software and I've had people buy entry or "food tickets", spend/redeem them, then 2-3 days later issue a chargeback. Makes my blood boil and it feels like fighting chargebacks is a complete waste of my time. I don't think I won one (out of a handful from the last event). If I had my way I'd blacklist that person/card and if they tried to come again next year I'd confront them at the gate and tell them they can't enter unless they first pay for last year's chargeback on camera. These are people who don't even reach out for a refund or with an issue (I know, all support goes through me and a link to file tickets is plastered everywhere on the website and in the app). Sorry for the rant but this issue makes me irrationally mad.

edflsafoiewq 4y ago
It will never cease to amaze me you can pay for things with magical leprechaun money that disappears later.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Not everyone can follow in the footsteps of ProtonVPN, who will let you mail an envelope of cash to a PO box in Switzerland if you want to.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    Mullvad does, and they're a hell of a lot more trustworthy than Proton.
- Ferret7446 4y ago
  That's why cryptocurrency is attractive to some people.
nadermx 4y ago
What I don't understand, is on most if not all my webapps, I offer 100% refund. It is clearly listed, and they don't even have to be logged in, just put in your reciept. It is clear on every single part of the page as well, even the contact form has it. Yet I still get chargebacks
- idopmstuff 4y ago
  I suspect that some people just see the charge on their CC and can't figure out where it's from or don't remember making it. A few of the folks who have charged back purchases from my business have specifically said this (and offered to withdraw the chargeback) when I reached out to them about it.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is important - you should check what your business appears on people’s statement as and make sure it’s recognizable. I’ve had business bills come is as completely unrecognizable companies that turn out to be entirely legit after doing some searching.
idopmstuff 4y ago
I'm surprised to hear that - I run an ecommerce business and have had a handful of chargebacks (same situation, no contact at all prior to them initiating the chargeback). I send in the order info and delivery confirmation from USPS, and I've won every single time.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  My software is event payment software (pay to get into the event, buy "food/drink tickets" to spend at vendors), we don't ship anything, it's all done in-person (or people buy on their phones). I guess date and times of in-person transactions (and when they spent the tickets) aren't good enough for Stripe. That's all I have, we don't have cameras or anything like that, it's mainly used for outdoor events. I assume the USPS confirmation is big factor. I'm glad to hear it's not so crappy for everyone though and people DO win.
  - selcuka 4y ago
    > I guess date and times of in-person transactions (and when they spent the tickets) aren't good enough for Stripe. I believe they are not good enough because the whole point of chargebacks is the claim that someone else made the payment. So the narrative is that you charged their card without their knowledge, then you got the food/drink for yourself. USPS confirmation is a big factor, especially if the address matches the CC billing address.
    - ttymck 4y ago
      > the whole point of chargebacks is the claim that someone else made the payment That is not correct. There are a number of other legitimate reasons to chargeback.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Out of curiosity, are these events related in any way to gambling or er, other types of adult entertainment?
    - 4y ago
philsquared_ 4y ago
We are a small business that provides a service. In business more than 30 years. We never win our disputes dispite providing mountains of evidence. At this point we dont even respond to them we simply file a lawsuit and add all our court fees on top. We have won 100% of our cases. 100% while presenting literally the same evidence we would in the dispute process. Banks and the credit card processors are accesories to fraud plain and simple. Either a class action lawsuit needs to happen or legistation does.
- chrischen 4y ago
  How much is your transaction size to be able to make a law suit worth it?
- joshstrange 4y ago
  If this was my money they were charging back I'm probably steal this idea. They amount isn't even that much (like less than $200 total for hundreds of thousands coming in) but it's the principal of the thing and it just makes me mad that people are so selfish and scamming small companies.
- myroon5 4y ago
  To clarify, do you file a lawsuit against the financial institution or the individuals who requested chargebacks?
- obblekk 4y ago
  Ironically, we are in the business of providing people court documents which they have to sign / notarize, and we still get this kind of chargeback behavior. In our case though, we've gotten quite good at writing these dispute letters and win more than 50% of them. Not perfect but ok. At least, it was until this pricing change which will cost us.
- simonhamp 4y ago
  They absolutely are accessories, but mostly by inaction. They probably have insurance that covers them so it's generally just not worth it to get involved - just approve for the claimant and move on. In my last job, the finance team basically didn't bother investigating or challenging chargebacks. The solution was to employ anti-fraud ML services (we used Ravelin) to prevent transactions that were at high risk of chargeback. It was surprisingly effective, but expensive. Sadly, still cheaper than the potential cost of the chargebacks.
edgyquant 4y ago
Chargebacks are the only recourse consumers have a lot of times. Companies, especially online ones, have a way of offering no real customer support and a lot of these app based ones take a few dollars even if they offer a “refund.” So I’m sorry you hate them but allowing the companies to always be taken as right is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I don't disagree and I feel like you didn't read my comment at all. I have recourse for users, it's stupid-easy to reach out and I have "If you need help", "If you have a problem", etc links everywhere along with top-level "Contact Us" menu links. These are people who came to a food festival, paid to get in, then bought food tickets, spent the food tickets (they are digital, I can track them), then issued a chargeback. They didn't come to the info tent (I know, I was there), they didn't file a ticket, they didn't reach out to the festival via social media, they just issued a chargeback. Customers absolutely should have recourse but that's not what happened here, what happened here was fraud by assholes.
  - dawnerd 4y ago
    I was working on a service to allow local haunts to do online ticketing without them having to give up a huge chunk of their already small profits. I gave up after talking to a few haunts that said they already had a big problem with chargebacks. Turns out people are just terrible.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    I did read your comment and you gave a lot of anecdotal reasons why charge backs screw you over despite you doing such a good job and never deserving it. Doesn’t change the fact that charge backs are an inherent good and as someone who has charged back it isn’t like you just press a button. You have to give dates, names and reasons + wait for them to determine. It’s also a prerequisite to have reached out to the seller and gotten nowhere.
- Silhouette 4y ago
obblekk 4y ago
I completely agree with the irrational anger. It feels so unfair particularly when I put personal effort into providing a service. My business has some services which are expensive and ephemeral (phone calls, custom work, etc.) and sometimes we get chargebacks on those. But, we tend to win a little over 50% of our disputes... with very extensive letters. Curious if you already tried to add more detail to the dispute letters? Do you ever collect ID from a customer? I also used to work on Facebook's event ticketing product (nearly 10yrs ago) and credit card fraud was a huge risk because ephemeral events frequented by younger people is a great vector to spend stolen cards. Much harder today with chip/tap but curious if you've tried doing 3DS liability transfers?
RHSeeger 4y ago
I think the problem is that, as a general rule, it's much more impactful for a person to have their money taken than it is for a business. If the credit card company has to err in favor of one of the entities, it's less impactful (to the entity) if it's in favor of the buyer. And then since it costs the credit card money to determine what _really_ happened, they're further incentivized to err on the side of the person who is going to be paying them. And then add to that the fact that there's very little negative (to the credit card company) to clawing back the money from the seller. For the vast majority of companies, "I just won't accept Visa" anymore isn't realistic if they want to stay in business. It seems like every factor pushes them in the direction of "just assume the payer is right".
marcosdumay 4y ago
> If I had my way I'd blacklist that person/card and if they tried to come again next year I'd confront them at the gate and tell them they can't enter unless they first pay for last year's chargeback on camera. AFAIK, that's the idea. The card processor is making a payment on the customer's behalf, and has very little space to disagree with him and send the money anyway. But that doesn't mean that the customer is correct, it only means that the processor is not the police, or the judicial system.
chasebank 4y ago
My wife and all her friends just say 'put in a chargeback' if they are unhappy with anything. I can't blame them, given the lack of customer support for many online shops but it hits too close to home. I've been dealing with chargebacks in our business for over 10 years. It's only gotten more popular. The processors now refer to it as 'friendly fraud'. Now we don't even fight chargebacks, we just hook into the visa RDR network or Ethoca's dispute mgmt tool, autorefund and move on. If anyone has a solution, I'll gladly pay handsomely. We spend hundreds of thousands a year on chargebacks.
- abigail95 4y ago
  > I'll gladly pay handsomely. We spend hundreds of thousands a year on chargebacks what's the median value? you can sell the outstanding debt to a collections agency, or even try collect it yourself.
  - chasebank 4y ago
    $50-100. We run analytics on the chargeback code / bank bin and see which is likely to win or deny. The whole area is just a tax on helpless business owners. We have 30 day return windows, 24-7 customer service via phone / email. Some people just wanna buy stuff online and get it for free. Price of doing business i suppose but it still pisses me off.
    - theturtletalks 4y ago
      Same thing with my business. The messed up part is if a new business owner is starting off and doing everything by the book, a chargeback early-on can get him banned from Stripe/PayPal. Someone mentioned above that banks don’t give a damn because they’re insured. Maybe online businesses need fraud insurance too, especially with chargebacks on the rise.
chrischen 4y ago
The chargebacks system is entirely flawed. Recently stripe started displaying the response letters from the credit card companies on why a dispute was lost and the reasoning they put in basically said “merchant provided evidence but customer insisted they were right…” The process would also be a lot easier and fairer if we could see the claims the disputer is making so that we can provide the exact evidence rather than the current black box of the process forcing us to guess at the evidence we have to submit… This is one area where PayPal wins a bit over Stripe because their dispute process shows a message history where all you need to do is see the customer’s message, refute it, and you can even contest a dispute result afterwards if new evidence arises.
abigail95 4y ago
first of all, call the police - that's criminal. secondly are you using 3DS? finally, any money you lose in chargeback fees or administrative work, take it to small claims and sue the pants off any asshole that tries to steal from you.
- quelltext 4y ago
  3DS won't help here. I don't believe the customers there are disputing for "fraud use of my card" here, which is the only thing 3DS helps with.
  - abigail95 4y ago
    then how is this person losing so many disputes? what are they claiming when they charge back a live event that they admit attending?
astura 4y ago
What sort of reason do they give for these chargebacks?
- joshstrange 4y ago
  The 3 most recent ones: 1. Reason: "Duplicate", they spent $40 to get into the festival (4x$10) then spent $40 to purchase food tickets (which they used) - I explained the situation, showed they clearly bought entry then bought food tickets and used them, I lost the dispute 2. Reason: "General", they bought 2 weekend passes and 3 day passes ($60 total) - I explained the situation, they updated the dispute to only be for $40, I maintained they bought the tickets and used them, I lost the dispute 3. Reason: "Duplicate", they spent $20 on food tickets after spending $20 to get into the festival - Once again I explained the situation and showed they bought entry, then bought food tickets shortly after entering the festival. This one actually went in our favor but under the new rules we'd still be out $15 since Stripe won't return the dispute fee even if we win. I had actually forgotten that we did win one after those other two, which were legitimate, were lost. All of the chargebacks happened from in-person payments, we didn't have a single chargeback from online purchases. All in-person payments were given an option to get an email receipt, all 3 of these chargebacks declined to get a receipt. The two duplicates I can almost forgive, they bought entry then food tickets for the same amount (though again, all they had to do was reach out and I would have responded in <15min, often less than 5), but instead they just issued chargebacks. However this all gets way grosser under Stripe's new policy. Not only do I have to put together the information to dispute it but we will be out $15 no matter what. Our transaction average is somewhere around $40 so right off the bat almost 40% is lost with zero recourse and then we have to fight to keep from losing 140%.
likeabbas 4y ago
On the other side, I have dealt with several merchants who wrote down my debit/credit card numbers and would charge me after I cancelled (specifically several fitness gyms). So I am very happy that chargebacks are in place.

edflsafoiewq 4y ago

It will never cease to amaze me you can pay for things with magical leprechaun money that disappears later.

rchaud 4y ago
Not everyone can follow in the footsteps of ProtonVPN, who will let you mail an envelope of cash to a PO box in Switzerland if you want to.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  Mullvad does, and they're a hell of a lot more trustworthy than Proton.
Ferret7446 4y ago
That's why cryptocurrency is attractive to some people.

nadermx 4y ago

What I don't understand, is on most if not all my webapps, I offer 100% refund. It is clearly listed, and they don't even have to be logged in, just put in your reciept. It is clear on every single part of the page as well, even the contact form has it. Yet I still get chargebacks

idopmstuff 4y ago
I suspect that some people just see the charge on their CC and can't figure out where it's from or don't remember making it. A few of the folks who have charged back purchases from my business have specifically said this (and offered to withdraw the chargeback) when I reached out to them about it.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is important - you should check what your business appears on people’s statement as and make sure it’s recognizable. I’ve had business bills come is as completely unrecognizable companies that turn out to be entirely legit after doing some searching.

idopmstuff 4y ago

I'm surprised to hear that - I run an ecommerce business and have had a handful of chargebacks (same situation, no contact at all prior to them initiating the chargeback). I send in the order info and delivery confirmation from USPS, and I've won every single time.

joshstrange 4y ago
My software is event payment software (pay to get into the event, buy "food/drink tickets" to spend at vendors), we don't ship anything, it's all done in-person (or people buy on their phones). I guess date and times of in-person transactions (and when they spent the tickets) aren't good enough for Stripe. That's all I have, we don't have cameras or anything like that, it's mainly used for outdoor events. I assume the USPS confirmation is big factor. I'm glad to hear it's not so crappy for everyone though and people DO win.
- selcuka 4y ago
  > I guess date and times of in-person transactions (and when they spent the tickets) aren't good enough for Stripe. I believe they are not good enough because the whole point of chargebacks is the claim that someone else made the payment. So the narrative is that you charged their card without their knowledge, then you got the food/drink for yourself. USPS confirmation is a big factor, especially if the address matches the CC billing address.
  - ttymck 4y ago
    > the whole point of chargebacks is the claim that someone else made the payment That is not correct. There are a number of other legitimate reasons to chargeback.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, are these events related in any way to gambling or er, other types of adult entertainment?
  - 4y ago

philsquared_ 4y ago

We are a small business that provides a service. In business more than 30 years. We never win our disputes dispite providing mountains of evidence. At this point we dont even respond to them we simply file a lawsuit and add all our court fees on top. We have won 100% of our cases. 100% while presenting literally the same evidence we would in the dispute process. Banks and the credit card processors are accesories to fraud plain and simple. Either a class action lawsuit needs to happen or legistation does.

chrischen 4y ago
How much is your transaction size to be able to make a law suit worth it?
joshstrange 4y ago
If this was my money they were charging back I'm probably steal this idea. They amount isn't even that much (like less than $200 total for hundreds of thousands coming in) but it's the principal of the thing and it just makes me mad that people are so selfish and scamming small companies.
myroon5 4y ago
To clarify, do you file a lawsuit against the financial institution or the individuals who requested chargebacks?
obblekk 4y ago
Ironically, we are in the business of providing people court documents which they have to sign / notarize, and we still get this kind of chargeback behavior. In our case though, we've gotten quite good at writing these dispute letters and win more than 50% of them. Not perfect but ok. At least, it was until this pricing change which will cost us.
simonhamp 4y ago
They absolutely are accessories, but mostly by inaction. They probably have insurance that covers them so it's generally just not worth it to get involved - just approve for the claimant and move on. In my last job, the finance team basically didn't bother investigating or challenging chargebacks. The solution was to employ anti-fraud ML services (we used Ravelin) to prevent transactions that were at high risk of chargeback. It was surprisingly effective, but expensive. Sadly, still cheaper than the potential cost of the chargebacks.

edgyquant 4y ago

Chargebacks are the only recourse consumers have a lot of times. Companies, especially online ones, have a way of offering no real customer support and a lot of these app based ones take a few dollars even if they offer a “refund.” So I’m sorry you hate them but allowing the companies to always be taken as right is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

joshstrange 4y ago
I don't disagree and I feel like you didn't read my comment at all. I have recourse for users, it's stupid-easy to reach out and I have "If you need help", "If you have a problem", etc links everywhere along with top-level "Contact Us" menu links. These are people who came to a food festival, paid to get in, then bought food tickets, spent the food tickets (they are digital, I can track them), then issued a chargeback. They didn't come to the info tent (I know, I was there), they didn't file a ticket, they didn't reach out to the festival via social media, they just issued a chargeback. Customers absolutely should have recourse but that's not what happened here, what happened here was fraud by assholes.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  I was working on a service to allow local haunts to do online ticketing without them having to give up a huge chunk of their already small profits. I gave up after talking to a few haunts that said they already had a big problem with chargebacks. Turns out people are just terrible.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  I did read your comment and you gave a lot of anecdotal reasons why charge backs screw you over despite you doing such a good job and never deserving it. Doesn’t change the fact that charge backs are an inherent good and as someone who has charged back it isn’t like you just press a button. You have to give dates, names and reasons + wait for them to determine. It’s also a prerequisite to have reached out to the seller and gotten nowhere.
Silhouette 4y ago

obblekk 4y ago

I completely agree with the irrational anger. It feels so unfair particularly when I put personal effort into providing a service. My business has some services which are expensive and ephemeral (phone calls, custom work, etc.) and sometimes we get chargebacks on those. But, we tend to win a little over 50% of our disputes... with very extensive letters. Curious if you already tried to add more detail to the dispute letters? Do you ever collect ID from a customer? I also used to work on Facebook's event ticketing product (nearly 10yrs ago) and credit card fraud was a huge risk because ephemeral events frequented by younger people is a great vector to spend stolen cards. Much harder today with chip/tap but curious if you've tried doing 3DS liability transfers?

RHSeeger 4y ago

I think the problem is that, as a general rule, it's much more impactful for a person to have their money taken than it is for a business. If the credit card company has to err in favor of one of the entities, it's less impactful (to the entity) if it's in favor of the buyer. And then since it costs the credit card money to determine what _really_ happened, they're further incentivized to err on the side of the person who is going to be paying them. And then add to that the fact that there's very little negative (to the credit card company) to clawing back the money from the seller. For the vast majority of companies, "I just won't accept Visa" anymore isn't realistic if they want to stay in business. It seems like every factor pushes them in the direction of "just assume the payer is right".

marcosdumay 4y ago

> If I had my way I'd blacklist that person/card and if they tried to come again next year I'd confront them at the gate and tell them they can't enter unless they first pay for last year's chargeback on camera. AFAIK, that's the idea. The card processor is making a payment on the customer's behalf, and has very little space to disagree with him and send the money anyway. But that doesn't mean that the customer is correct, it only means that the processor is not the police, or the judicial system.

chasebank 4y ago

My wife and all her friends just say 'put in a chargeback' if they are unhappy with anything. I can't blame them, given the lack of customer support for many online shops but it hits too close to home. I've been dealing with chargebacks in our business for over 10 years. It's only gotten more popular. The processors now refer to it as 'friendly fraud'. Now we don't even fight chargebacks, we just hook into the visa RDR network or Ethoca's dispute mgmt tool, autorefund and move on. If anyone has a solution, I'll gladly pay handsomely. We spend hundreds of thousands a year on chargebacks.

abigail95 4y ago
> I'll gladly pay handsomely. We spend hundreds of thousands a year on chargebacks what's the median value? you can sell the outstanding debt to a collections agency, or even try collect it yourself.
- chasebank 4y ago
  $50-100. We run analytics on the chargeback code / bank bin and see which is likely to win or deny. The whole area is just a tax on helpless business owners. We have 30 day return windows, 24-7 customer service via phone / email. Some people just wanna buy stuff online and get it for free. Price of doing business i suppose but it still pisses me off.
  - theturtletalks 4y ago
    Same thing with my business. The messed up part is if a new business owner is starting off and doing everything by the book, a chargeback early-on can get him banned from Stripe/PayPal. Someone mentioned above that banks don’t give a damn because they’re insured. Maybe online businesses need fraud insurance too, especially with chargebacks on the rise.

chrischen 4y ago

The chargebacks system is entirely flawed. Recently stripe started displaying the response letters from the credit card companies on why a dispute was lost and the reasoning they put in basically said “merchant provided evidence but customer insisted they were right…” The process would also be a lot easier and fairer if we could see the claims the disputer is making so that we can provide the exact evidence rather than the current black box of the process forcing us to guess at the evidence we have to submit… This is one area where PayPal wins a bit over Stripe because their dispute process shows a message history where all you need to do is see the customer’s message, refute it, and you can even contest a dispute result afterwards if new evidence arises.

abigail95 4y ago

first of all, call the police - that's criminal. secondly are you using 3DS? finally, any money you lose in chargeback fees or administrative work, take it to small claims and sue the pants off any asshole that tries to steal from you.

quelltext 4y ago
3DS won't help here. I don't believe the customers there are disputing for "fraud use of my card" here, which is the only thing 3DS helps with.
- abigail95 4y ago
  then how is this person losing so many disputes? what are they claiming when they charge back a live event that they admit attending?

astura 4y ago

What sort of reason do they give for these chargebacks?

joshstrange 4y ago
The 3 most recent ones: 1. Reason: "Duplicate", they spent $40 to get into the festival (4x$10) then spent $40 to purchase food tickets (which they used) - I explained the situation, showed they clearly bought entry then bought food tickets and used them, I lost the dispute 2. Reason: "General", they bought 2 weekend passes and 3 day passes ($60 total) - I explained the situation, they updated the dispute to only be for $40, I maintained they bought the tickets and used them, I lost the dispute 3. Reason: "Duplicate", they spent $20 on food tickets after spending $20 to get into the festival - Once again I explained the situation and showed they bought entry, then bought food tickets shortly after entering the festival. This one actually went in our favor but under the new rules we'd still be out $15 since Stripe won't return the dispute fee even if we win. I had actually forgotten that we did win one after those other two, which were legitimate, were lost. All of the chargebacks happened from in-person payments, we didn't have a single chargeback from online purchases. All in-person payments were given an option to get an email receipt, all 3 of these chargebacks declined to get a receipt. The two duplicates I can almost forgive, they bought entry then food tickets for the same amount (though again, all they had to do was reach out and I would have responded in <15min, often less than 5), but instead they just issued chargebacks. However this all gets way grosser under Stripe's new policy. Not only do I have to put together the information to dispute it but we will be out $15 no matter what. Our transaction average is somewhere around $40 so right off the bat almost 40% is lost with zero recourse and then we have to fight to keep from losing 140%.

likeabbas 4y ago

On the other side, I have dealt with several merchants who wrote down my debit/credit card numbers and would charge me after I cancelled (specifically several fitness gyms). So I am very happy that chargebacks are in place.