Charging Credit Cards Part I

How to handle chargebacks (on a service)

[Hubie]

You charge customers for a service...

maybe you are a consultant, etc

then in the mail you get a Chargeback from the credit card company.

The customer has told them they did not authorize this charge, and the credit card company has given them their money back.

You, the webmaster, have a chance to dispute this, but how can you with no tracking #? no physical good?

[wrockca]

Any time that you are accepting credit cards for a service (non-tangible product) you should have some type a signed agreement to protect you from these types of chargebacks. If you did not provide them with a tangible product and you did not have a contract for the services it is very hard to prove that a service was rendered. Documentation is the key to protecting yourself.

Hope this helps...

[limoshawn]

I have recently given up on fighting charge backs, the credit card companies have made it way to easy to commit chargeback fraud and there is little or no punishment for card holders known to commit this type of fraud.
Our new policy is if we receive a chargeback from a customer that did not try to contact us prior to charging back they go straight to a collection agency and the bad debt (the original and a chargeback fee) is reported to the credit bureaus.

[LifeinAsia]

I like your policy. What results have you seen with the new policy?

[Hubie]

a perfect example of this is WebmasterWorld (if they accepted credit cards). what if it showed up on my statement, and i contested it. What would brette say, I emailed him his login info, therefore he agreed to this? for any sort of membership site, this has probably been an issue at some point....

[limoshawn]

I like your policy. What results have you seen with the new policy?

I have been very happy with the results so far, 2 for 2 this year.

[Corey Bryant]

Yes you can sell your chargebacks - google selling your chargebacks.

If you are charging for something - get them to sign an authorization and fax it to you. Having this on file will help to protect you on this type of chargeback

-Corey

[trinorthlighting]

We have an attorney who works on any chargebacks. If you have their personal information and the person is in the US you can have your attorney run a skip trace and put a lien on their property or bank account. That always works for us for chargebacks greater than $1000

[lgn1]

The problem with selling chargebacks, is that thieves dont ussually have good credit ratings, so you have no leverage to get them to pay via the normal collection route.