4 ms·

If your service is marketed as 'Prepfully' and payments show as made to 'Prepfully' in customers' card/bank statements (That's very important as @smca highlight

If your service is marketed as 'Prepfully' and payments show as made to 'Prepfully' in customers' card/bank statements (That's very important as @smca highlighted) then I wouldn't believe a claim that the chargeback was accidental. Likewise, if your service is indeed a "1-1 mock interviews / coaching service" then my reply to any claim that they "forgot they used the service" would be: "Pull the other one". When they promised to withdraw the chargeback did they actually do it (you might not have any way to know)? My guess is that they didn't. IMHO these were dishonest customers, and I would blacklist them to avoid repeats. Now regarding your question specifically I think the only way is to understand why you lost and to beef up your evidence, processes, T&Cs, etc as needed. Unfortunetaly I do not have much insight in that.

thereisnotry 3y ago
Thanks for the suggestions, really appreciate it. We're not something people use day-to-day, I think we're mostly just relevant in the 4-8 weeks someone's preparing for a job interview - so I can imagine people forgetting they used something called "PREPFULLY". After talking to these customers I got the sense they couldn't relate their card transaction to the service itself -- but once I sent an email they immediately remembered what it was. In this context smca's suggestion (4) and (5) could be quite useful - if people either Google Prepfully or if I can remind them of what it was within the transaction description - this could pre-empt a chargeback from those who read it. Re: those who promised to withdraw - indeed, I don't have any way to know if they did do so. There's one chargeback which I "won" without even submitting evidence, so I think this is probably a clear case of it being withdrawn. There's one which I lost just a few hours ago, which triggered this post. Re: blacklist - yeah I guess this is one way. Interestingly though, 2 of the customers actually immediately offered to pay again, to compensate for the lost revenue - which was both nice of them, and not aligned with the behavior of a someone dishonest. But it might well be worth it to prevent the risk of hitting the Visa/Mastercard threshold for chargebacks. I have a feeling it would be easy to get around though, if someone has the wrong intent they would probably just use a different email or card. Either way - I'll be pretty regretful about having to do this -- repeat bookers are basically our bread and butter - I discount all candidates' first bookings to super low margins as a conversion tactic (i.e. try out a mock interview to a low price) and even lose money on these sometimes. Which gets compensated by the 60-70% of all these users who end up booking additional sessions at the standard price - which is where Prepfully makes money. But probably not worth the risk of letting someone who has done one chargeback do additional ones. Re: losses - unfortunately I don't get much information re: why we lost the dispute. Indeed the two things to probably work on are (a) more T&Cs and (b) more logs.
slap_shot 3y ago
What does "Pull the other one" mean in reply to "forgot they used the service"?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  pull the other one INFORMAL•BRITISH used to express a suspicion that one is being deceived or teased. "Your boat was sunk by a swordfish? Pull the other one!"
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    It's common in the US, too. I think that the history is: "Pulling your leg" means that someone is deceiving you (either playfully or spitefully). "Pull the other one" means that someone pulled your leg, and you are telling them that you noticed by informing them that you have another leg that can be pulled.

thereisnotry 3y ago

Thanks for the suggestions, really appreciate it. We're not something people use day-to-day, I think we're mostly just relevant in the 4-8 weeks someone's preparing for a job interview - so I can imagine people forgetting they used something called "PREPFULLY". After talking to these customers I got the sense they couldn't relate their card transaction to the service itself -- but once I sent an email they immediately remembered what it was. In this context smca's suggestion (4) and (5) could be quite useful - if people either Google Prepfully or if I can remind them of what it was within the transaction description - this could pre-empt a chargeback from those who read it. Re: those who promised to withdraw - indeed, I don't have any way to know if they did do so. There's one chargeback which I "won" without even submitting evidence, so I think this is probably a clear case of it being withdrawn. There's one which I lost just a few hours ago, which triggered this post. Re: blacklist - yeah I guess this is one way. Interestingly though, 2 of the customers actually immediately offered to pay again, to compensate for the lost revenue - which was both nice of them, and not aligned with the behavior of a someone dishonest. But it might well be worth it to prevent the risk of hitting the Visa/Mastercard threshold for chargebacks. I have a feeling it would be easy to get around though, if someone has the wrong intent they would probably just use a different email or card. Either way - I'll be pretty regretful about having to do this -- repeat bookers are basically our bread and butter - I discount all candidates' first bookings to super low margins as a conversion tactic (i.e. try out a mock interview to a low price) and even lose money on these sometimes. Which gets compensated by the 60-70% of all these users who end up booking additional sessions at the standard price - which is where Prepfully makes money. But probably not worth the risk of letting someone who has done one chargeback do additional ones. Re: losses - unfortunately I don't get much information re: why we lost the dispute. Indeed the two things to probably work on are (a) more T&Cs and (b) more logs.

slap_shot 3y ago

What does "Pull the other one" mean in reply to "forgot they used the service"?

mytailorisrich 3y ago
pull the other one INFORMAL•BRITISH used to express a suspicion that one is being deceived or teased. "Your boat was sunk by a swordfish? Pull the other one!"
- JohnFen 3y ago
  It's common in the US, too. I think that the history is: "Pulling your leg" means that someone is deceiving you (either playfully or spitefully). "Pull the other one" means that someone pulled your leg, and you are telling them that you noticed by informing them that you have another leg that can be pulled.