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If a business attempts to steal from me I instantly charge back and the onus is on them to prove that I owe them money. I do this all the time and have never b

by yadaeno 6mo ago

If a business attempts to steal from me I instantly charge back and the onus is on them to prove that I owe them money. I do this all the time and have never been blacklisted.

butlike 6mo ago
Yeah that kind of seems like antiquated fear-mongering. Next they should call the BBB and leave a strongly-worded review!
- nekusar 6mo ago
  wait, int the BBB just boomer yelp?
  - sonofhans 6mo ago
    Believe it or not, back in the mists of time we had these things called “public institutions” which were at least notionally chartered to, and in fact somewhat did, act in the public benefit. The BBB was one of those — not always perfect, but consumer-friendly and not out to scam or profit. Yelp is just another VC-backed money play. They do not now or have they ever claimed or intended to make the world a better place without regard for their own profit.
- collingreen 6mo ago
  You joke but I got bbb involved with a scammy business insurance company that is easy to sign up for but you can't cancel or stop renewal or change billing info. Company has an infinite hold line and never responds to anything. Filed a complaint on BBB and it was responded to next business day.
mort96 6mo ago
I don't think it's helpful to think about this as the company "trying to steal from you". There is no intention here. It's just something that got lost in a bad IT system. You gain nothing from issuing a chargeback. You imperceptibly nudge some statistic and a "banned for life" flag might automatically get flipped in a database. There's no righteous comeuppance here. You try to contact support, pester them a bit, call someone if possible, and eventually, you may get your money back. If you don't, then you issue the chargeback.
- DANmode 6mo ago
  > There is no intention here. You don’t think it’s funny how the mechanism for taking the money is never broken? Work with a large company who won’t pay your 30 or 45 day invoice for 90 days before you broadly decide this.
  - Marsymars 6mo ago
    > You don’t think it’s funny how the mechanism for taking the money is never broken? I dunno, sometimes it is. The most broken I've seen in my favour was a ~$600 purchase where the order flow broke partway through. Customer support was a major pain to get in contact with in order to figure out how to give them my money. When I eventually managed to talk to someone, they advised that maybe their third-party fraud algorithms didn't like my email. I changed my email, the order worked when I placed it again, and I received my product a week later. Several months later, without any communication from the company, I received a second product in the mail, presumably from the first order that I didn't pay for. Based on how much of a pain it was to contact support the first time, I wasn't about to do so again based on their mistake. To be charitable, I kept the package in my garage for a couple months in case the company contacted me to arrange return shipping. Not hearing from them, I just sold it off.
  - mort96 6mo ago
    > Work with a large company who won’t pay your 30 or 45 day invoice for 90 days before you broadly decide this. I have had this experience. I don't see how a chargeback would've helped. Typically, you would invoice someone for time you've worked for them, or sometimes you buy a product from one company and invoice another for the expense. Chargebacks don't help you get a company to pay your invoice. Debt collectors do. In any case, this is something different from refunding a purchase as a customer, which was the topic at hand.
    - DANmode 6mo ago
      The topic I replied to was giving the benefit of the doubt on the intention of big companies putting no effort in to fix their workflows if it makes them more money to work with you improperly.
stavros 6mo ago
I have a few customers like that. They sign up, forget about it, then they see it on their statement and issue a chargeback. Not only do they get their $20 back (that they very willingly signed up for), but I have to pay another $35 to Stripe for the privilege of having a forgetful customer who couldn't even be bothered to email me for a refund.
- ValentineC 6mo ago
  > I have to pay another $35 to Stripe for the privilege of having a forgetful customer who couldn't even be bothered to email me for a refund. I've seen some businesses send a pre-billing email telling customers that they'll be charged on a certain date, so that customers have time to cancel if they want. Cloudflare does that for domain renewals, sending out emails 30 and 60 days before. Of course, there are also some businesses that hope that customers forget that they're subscribed, so that there's breakage.
  - stavros 6mo ago
    Mine is a one-off payment :( They just forget they paid for it, plus the company name isn't the same as the app name, so they just go "welp, someone must be stealing from me!" and request a chargeback.
    - xyzzy_plugh 6mo ago
      Anecdotally I helped a client entirely eliminate their chargeback rate by creating a new subsidiary named directly after their product, so that the billing line item was obviously the product. They also saw a slight increase in inbound sales, which surprised me.
      - stavros 6mo ago
        That's a great idea, but it's only helpful above a certain sales volume, which I don't really have. It's just disappointing when the charge back happens, but the economics of the business don't really warrant doing anything about it.
BeetleB 6mo ago
With some of the large companies, blacklisted is a real concern. eBay is one known example. I've heard the same for Amazon (forget if it was retail or AWS). It's cheaper to lose your business than to have a proper human review every complaint.
- saintfire 6mo ago
  I've charged back amazon over retail issues that they did not deem worthy of providing me a human to interact with. It whined about it for a bit on their site but eventually just gave up. Works normal again.
alpaca128 6mo ago
Some companies like Activision clearly state in their terms that chargeback means you will be permanently banned, no exceptions. You'll lose your account and access to all digital "purchases" forever. They don't need to prove anything to stop doing business with you.
- bachmeier 6mo ago
  In the US. And that's only because when Activision makes a digital "sale" they have no legal obligation to follow through and give you what they promised.
  - docmars 6mo ago
    This is why the seven seas are so important for preserving our purchases, companies be damned.
  - alpaca128 6mo ago
    I live in the EU and have read this in the terms for my region. > they have no legal obligation to follow through and give you what they promised Yes, they do. Contracts are contracts. They just don't promise you ownership of anything but a revocable license. Like every platform offering DRM protected content.

by yadaeno 6mo ago

If a business attempts to steal from me I instantly charge back and the onus is on them to prove that I owe them money. I do this all the time and have never been blacklisted.

butlike 6mo ago

Yeah that kind of seems like antiquated fear-mongering. Next they should call the BBB and leave a strongly-worded review!

nekusar 6mo ago
wait, int the BBB just boomer yelp?
- sonofhans 6mo ago
  Believe it or not, back in the mists of time we had these things called “public institutions” which were at least notionally chartered to, and in fact somewhat did, act in the public benefit. The BBB was one of those — not always perfect, but consumer-friendly and not out to scam or profit. Yelp is just another VC-backed money play. They do not now or have they ever claimed or intended to make the world a better place without regard for their own profit.
collingreen 6mo ago
You joke but I got bbb involved with a scammy business insurance company that is easy to sign up for but you can't cancel or stop renewal or change billing info. Company has an infinite hold line and never responds to anything. Filed a complaint on BBB and it was responded to next business day.

mort96 6mo ago

I don't think it's helpful to think about this as the company "trying to steal from you". There is no intention here. It's just something that got lost in a bad IT system. You gain nothing from issuing a chargeback. You imperceptibly nudge some statistic and a "banned for life" flag might automatically get flipped in a database. There's no righteous comeuppance here. You try to contact support, pester them a bit, call someone if possible, and eventually, you may get your money back. If you don't, then you issue the chargeback.

DANmode 6mo ago
> There is no intention here. You don’t think it’s funny how the mechanism for taking the money is never broken? Work with a large company who won’t pay your 30 or 45 day invoice for 90 days before you broadly decide this.
- Marsymars 6mo ago
  > You don’t think it’s funny how the mechanism for taking the money is never broken? I dunno, sometimes it is. The most broken I've seen in my favour was a ~$600 purchase where the order flow broke partway through. Customer support was a major pain to get in contact with in order to figure out how to give them my money. When I eventually managed to talk to someone, they advised that maybe their third-party fraud algorithms didn't like my email. I changed my email, the order worked when I placed it again, and I received my product a week later. Several months later, without any communication from the company, I received a second product in the mail, presumably from the first order that I didn't pay for. Based on how much of a pain it was to contact support the first time, I wasn't about to do so again based on their mistake. To be charitable, I kept the package in my garage for a couple months in case the company contacted me to arrange return shipping. Not hearing from them, I just sold it off.
- mort96 6mo ago
  > Work with a large company who won’t pay your 30 or 45 day invoice for 90 days before you broadly decide this. I have had this experience. I don't see how a chargeback would've helped. Typically, you would invoice someone for time you've worked for them, or sometimes you buy a product from one company and invoice another for the expense. Chargebacks don't help you get a company to pay your invoice. Debt collectors do. In any case, this is something different from refunding a purchase as a customer, which was the topic at hand.
  - DANmode 6mo ago
    The topic I replied to was giving the benefit of the doubt on the intention of big companies putting no effort in to fix their workflows if it makes them more money to work with you improperly.

stavros 6mo ago

I have a few customers like that. They sign up, forget about it, then they see it on their statement and issue a chargeback. Not only do they get their $20 back (that they very willingly signed up for), but I have to pay another $35 to Stripe for the privilege of having a forgetful customer who couldn't even be bothered to email me for a refund.

ValentineC 6mo ago
> I have to pay another $35 to Stripe for the privilege of having a forgetful customer who couldn't even be bothered to email me for a refund. I've seen some businesses send a pre-billing email telling customers that they'll be charged on a certain date, so that customers have time to cancel if they want. Cloudflare does that for domain renewals, sending out emails 30 and 60 days before. Of course, there are also some businesses that hope that customers forget that they're subscribed, so that there's breakage.
- stavros 6mo ago
  Mine is a one-off payment :( They just forget they paid for it, plus the company name isn't the same as the app name, so they just go "welp, someone must be stealing from me!" and request a chargeback.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6mo ago
    Anecdotally I helped a client entirely eliminate their chargeback rate by creating a new subsidiary named directly after their product, so that the billing line item was obviously the product. They also saw a slight increase in inbound sales, which surprised me.
    - stavros 6mo ago
      That's a great idea, but it's only helpful above a certain sales volume, which I don't really have. It's just disappointing when the charge back happens, but the economics of the business don't really warrant doing anything about it.

BeetleB 6mo ago

With some of the large companies, blacklisted is a real concern. eBay is one known example. I've heard the same for Amazon (forget if it was retail or AWS). It's cheaper to lose your business than to have a proper human review every complaint.

saintfire 6mo ago
I've charged back amazon over retail issues that they did not deem worthy of providing me a human to interact with. It whined about it for a bit on their site but eventually just gave up. Works normal again.

alpaca128 6mo ago

Some companies like Activision clearly state in their terms that chargeback means you will be permanently banned, no exceptions. You'll lose your account and access to all digital "purchases" forever. They don't need to prove anything to stop doing business with you.

bachmeier 6mo ago
In the US. And that's only because when Activision makes a digital "sale" they have no legal obligation to follow through and give you what they promised.
- docmars 6mo ago
  This is why the seven seas are so important for preserving our purchases, companies be damned.
- alpaca128 6mo ago
  I live in the EU and have read this in the terms for my region. > they have no legal obligation to follow through and give you what they promised Yes, they do. Contracts are contracts. They just don't promise you ownership of anything but a revocable license. Like every platform offering DRM protected content.