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And across the water, my wife has banned US IP addresses from her online shop once or twice. She runs a small business making products that don't travel well,
by raffraffraff 1y ago
And across the water, my wife has banned US IP addresses from her online shop once or twice. She runs a small business making products that don't travel well, and would cost a lot to ship to the US. It's a huge country with many people. Answering pointless queries, saying "No, I can't do that" in 50 different ways and eventually dealing with negative reviews from people you've never sold to and possibly even never talked to... Much easier to mass block. I call it network segmentation. She's also blocked all of Asia, Africa, Australia and half of Europe.
The blocks don't stay in place forever, just a few months.
- silisili 1y agoGoogle Shopping might be to blame here, and I don't at all blame the response. I say that because I can't count how many times Google has taken me to a foreign site that either doesn't even ship to the US, or doesn't say one way or another and treat me like a crazy person for asking.
- lxgr 1y agoAs long as your customer base never travels and needs support, sure, I guess. The only way of communicating with such companies are chargebacks through my bank (which always at least has a phone number reachable from abroad), so I’d make sure to account for these.
- closewith 1y agoChargebacks aren't the panacea you're used to outside the US, so that's a non-issue.
- lxgr 1y agoOnly if your bank isn't competent in using them. Visa/Mastercard chargeback rules largely apply worldwide (with some regional exceptions, but much less than many banks would make you believe).
- closewith 1y agoNo, outside the US, both Visa and Mastercard regularly side with the retailer/supplier. If you process a chargeback simply because a UK company blocks your IP, you will be denied.
- antonkochubey 1y agoOne of requirements of Visa/Mastercard is for the customer to be able to contact merchant post-purchase.
- closewith 1y agoOnly via the original method of commerce. An online retailer who geoblocks users does not have to open the geoblock for users who move into the geoblocked regions. I have first-hand experience, as I ran a company that geoblocked US users for legal reasons and successfully defended chargebacks by users who made transactions in the EU and disputed them from the US. Chargebacks outside the US are a true arbitration process, not the rubberstamped refunds they are there.
- lxgr 1y ago> Chargebacks outside the US are a true arbitration process, not the rubberstamped refunds they are there. What's true is that in the US, the cardholder can often just say "I've never heard of that merchant", since 3DS is not really a thing, and generally merchants are relatively unlikely to have compelling evidence to the contrary. But for all non-fraud disputes, they follow the same process.
- closewith 1y agoAs commented elsewhere, you're just wrong. It's a significant burden of proof for a cardholder to win a dispute for non-compliance with card network rules and it very rarely happens (outside of actual merchant fraud, which is much rarer in the EU). Again, you're not aware of the reality outside the US.
- 542354234235 1y agoUsually CC companies require email records (another way of communicating with a company) showing you attempted to resolve the problem but could not. I don’t think “I tried to visit the website that I bought X item from while in Africa and couldn’t get to it” is sufficient.
- lxgr 1y agoI really wish I could just email companies, but at least many US based ones don’t offer that way of communicating. It’s usually phone support only, or some horrible web chat that leaves only the company with a permanent record of what was said. (I suspect that’s on purpose.)
- ronsor 1y agoAt that point, I wonder if an online shop is even necessary. Just sell in-person.