4 ms·

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 o

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
Chargebacks are the only recourse consumers have a lot of times. Doesn't that mean the legal system - which should be the civilised way to resolve disputes - needs fixing? It's strange that some cultures delegate the power to make serious decisions about other people's property and finances to unaccountable, unregulated commercial entities. 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.” That generalisation is completely unfounded. There are millions of businesses in the world. Some of them are run by charlatans who would sell their first born child for a dollar more profit. Others are run by normal people who also have bills to pay. 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. No, because the exact opposite of that is allowing the customers to always be taken as right and that is a free pass for fraudsters. There are customers who would sell their first born child to save a dollar too.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > Doesn't that mean the legal system - which should be the civilised way to resolve disputes - needs fixing? Is there a legal system resolution that wouldn't wind up costing the participants, especially the payer, more than it's worth to handle it that way. For many people, just taking a day off work to attend court is more than they can afford.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    There are some legal procedures that can be done online, by email. Something like this could totally be setup to take place digitally.
  - Silhouette 4y ago
    Small claims procedures exist in many places for exactly this reason. Ideally the parties submit their own version of events and if the facts are not in dispute then a judge or similar official can rule on the case without anyone ever needing to appear in person. The fees can be minimal but enough to deter frivolous actions. There can be a policy where the loser pays those fees by default so if one party will clearly win then there is an incentive for the other to settle immediately without going through the whole process. If the facts are in dispute then you can move to providing evidence and if necessary to each side making a full case at some kind of trial. By the time you're appearing in person that will probably incur a higher cost even if the system is designed to minimise overheads. That means it's only worth going that far if there is enough on the line to justify the effort. But isn't that reasonable for something that will take a significant amount of both parties' time and the court's resources to decide and if the facts are in dispute and neither party has clear evidence that immediately resolves the matter? Again you can keep the fees low but not completely negligible and have a presumption that the loser will pay to incentivise settling early in most cases.
oceanghost 4y ago
I have a story I'm fond of telling-- I ordered a pizza from GitHub for pickup. The restaurant was literally closed when I arrived. GitHub customer service instantly "resolved" the issue by ruling in their own favor (I even showed them pictures of the restaurant with chains on the door). So, of course, I did a chargeback and never used Grubhub again.
- chrischen 4y ago
  My experience with Uber and Grubhub et al is that even they generally tend to side on the consumer, especially for small value transactions like a food order. So either you’re being an unreliable narrator or Grubhub in particular has gone off a cliff. But given that Grubhub is subject to USA chargeback policies still I’m not sure why they would invite a chargeback like that for your case.
  - oceanghost 4y ago
    > So either you’re being an unreliable narrator or Grubhub in particular has gone off a cliff. This is one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. You're taking a premise you have no evidence for (UBER and GH have good customer service) and using faulty logic (assuming there are only two possible explanations) to make a conclusion that fits your wrong world view (that my literal direct experience must be incorrect).
chrischen 4y ago
Something like 90% of our disputes are friendly fraud and the other 10% isn’t because we don’t provide customer support… it’s because they don’t even bother contacting support because the dispute process is so encouraged now. We don’t eat the cost but we have to build it into the prices for other consumers to pay. Meanwhile guess who ends up paying and wins? Consumers end up paying higher prices, spending larger volumes, and credit card companies pocket the fees from increased transactions and even dispute processing! The credit card companies literally have zero incentive to not side with the customer as it will decrease transaction volumes. So called consumer protections really protect financial institutions by allowing them to force businesses to build fraud costs silently back into the sales process. The whole system is designed to pat the customer on the back with one hand while the other reaches to steal from their back pocket. Why do you think America took soooo long to implement anti fraud chip cards? Because anti fraud tech reduced transaction volumes and thus profits! Credit card companies are making bank from fraud—both legit and friendly and disguising pro-fraud policies as “pro-consumer” legislation. What’s crazy was that credit card companies touted 0-fraud liability on cards while having literally garbage anti-fraud tech… because merchants actually had to pay for the fraud.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  TBH, last time I did a chargeback, I did not contact support first. That's because I could see a clear way to get my money back via a chargeback (dispute transaction button in the online bank). There was no such button on the company's website.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    Honestly I wish Amazon had such a button. I hate paying for things.
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      Amazon has that option for nearly every purchase.

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

Chargebacks are the only recourse consumers have a lot of times. Doesn't that mean the legal system - which should be the civilised way to resolve disputes - needs fixing? It's strange that some cultures delegate the power to make serious decisions about other people's property and finances to unaccountable, unregulated commercial entities. 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.” That generalisation is completely unfounded. There are millions of businesses in the world. Some of them are run by charlatans who would sell their first born child for a dollar more profit. Others are run by normal people who also have bills to pay. 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. No, because the exact opposite of that is allowing the customers to always be taken as right and that is a free pass for fraudsters. There are customers who would sell their first born child to save a dollar too.

RHSeeger 4y ago
> Doesn't that mean the legal system - which should be the civilised way to resolve disputes - needs fixing? Is there a legal system resolution that wouldn't wind up costing the participants, especially the payer, more than it's worth to handle it that way. For many people, just taking a day off work to attend court is more than they can afford.
- chrischen 4y ago
  There are some legal procedures that can be done online, by email. Something like this could totally be setup to take place digitally.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  Small claims procedures exist in many places for exactly this reason. Ideally the parties submit their own version of events and if the facts are not in dispute then a judge or similar official can rule on the case without anyone ever needing to appear in person. The fees can be minimal but enough to deter frivolous actions. There can be a policy where the loser pays those fees by default so if one party will clearly win then there is an incentive for the other to settle immediately without going through the whole process. If the facts are in dispute then you can move to providing evidence and if necessary to each side making a full case at some kind of trial. By the time you're appearing in person that will probably incur a higher cost even if the system is designed to minimise overheads. That means it's only worth going that far if there is enough on the line to justify the effort. But isn't that reasonable for something that will take a significant amount of both parties' time and the court's resources to decide and if the facts are in dispute and neither party has clear evidence that immediately resolves the matter? Again you can keep the fees low but not completely negligible and have a presumption that the loser will pay to incentivise settling early in most cases.

oceanghost 4y ago

I have a story I'm fond of telling-- I ordered a pizza from GitHub for pickup. The restaurant was literally closed when I arrived. GitHub customer service instantly "resolved" the issue by ruling in their own favor (I even showed them pictures of the restaurant with chains on the door). So, of course, I did a chargeback and never used Grubhub again.

chrischen 4y ago
My experience with Uber and Grubhub et al is that even they generally tend to side on the consumer, especially for small value transactions like a food order. So either you’re being an unreliable narrator or Grubhub in particular has gone off a cliff. But given that Grubhub is subject to USA chargeback policies still I’m not sure why they would invite a chargeback like that for your case.
- oceanghost 4y ago
  > So either you’re being an unreliable narrator or Grubhub in particular has gone off a cliff. This is one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. You're taking a premise you have no evidence for (UBER and GH have good customer service) and using faulty logic (assuming there are only two possible explanations) to make a conclusion that fits your wrong world view (that my literal direct experience must be incorrect).

chrischen 4y ago

Something like 90% of our disputes are friendly fraud and the other 10% isn’t because we don’t provide customer support… it’s because they don’t even bother contacting support because the dispute process is so encouraged now. We don’t eat the cost but we have to build it into the prices for other consumers to pay. Meanwhile guess who ends up paying and wins? Consumers end up paying higher prices, spending larger volumes, and credit card companies pocket the fees from increased transactions and even dispute processing! The credit card companies literally have zero incentive to not side with the customer as it will decrease transaction volumes. So called consumer protections really protect financial institutions by allowing them to force businesses to build fraud costs silently back into the sales process. The whole system is designed to pat the customer on the back with one hand while the other reaches to steal from their back pocket. Why do you think America took soooo long to implement anti fraud chip cards? Because anti fraud tech reduced transaction volumes and thus profits! Credit card companies are making bank from fraud—both legit and friendly and disguising pro-fraud policies as “pro-consumer” legislation. What’s crazy was that credit card companies touted 0-fraud liability on cards while having literally garbage anti-fraud tech… because merchants actually had to pay for the fraud.

lostmsu 4y ago
TBH, last time I did a chargeback, I did not contact support first. That's because I could see a clear way to get my money back via a chargeback (dispute transaction button in the online bank). There was no such button on the company's website.
- chrischen 4y ago
  Honestly I wish Amazon had such a button. I hate paying for things.
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    Amazon has that option for nearly every purchase.