Forum Moderators: buckworks
(By the way, we are the merchant in this little story. And all 3 parties involved are in the U.S.)
Quick background: Merchant charged customer's card. Customer used service. Customer's manager didn't recognize charge and cried fraud to credit card company (CARD). Merchant contacted customer, then customer contacted CARD to cancel the dispute and agreed to pay the amount. Customer also sent merchant a fax stating the same intent. Merchant sent fax to CARD. CARD told customer and merchant that issue was closed and everything is good. Customer paid amount to CARD.
Flash forward 6 weeks. CARD issues a chargeback to merchant and money is taken out of merchant's bank account. Merchant contacts CARD. CARD says no, issue was never closed, no record of contact from customer, and no record of contact from merchant. Merchant and customer spend several hours over the next week calling and faxing CARD. At one point, there was a 3-way conference call between CARD, merchant, and customer. Once again, CARD told everyone the issue would be closed. And hour later, CARD service rep called customer to say she took the issue to her supervisor and watched while the supervisor closed the issue in the system. Merchant called card- issue still open and no record any such conversation ever took place. Merchant spent over an hour on the phone bumping up the issue to supervisor then manager. CARD refused to initate another phone call to customer becasue it's "against corporate policy." Customer and merchant spend several days calling and faxing repeatedly to try to close the issue. Names are taken, but when they call back, no one has ever heard of those people and (supposedly) have no way of contacting them.
So, nothing is getting done through normal channels. CARD's system is apparently so messed up that it can't even record any information properly. The merchant is obviously pissed. The customer is pissed. And CARD apparently doesn't care.
So, what steps have any of you taken in similar circumstances?
I am considering talking to my bank and saying CARD made an unauthorized transaction and refuses to put the money back. I can file a BBB complaint, but I don't see that carrying much weight against CARD.
Is a letter to the Attorney General in CARD's home state too drastic?
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 9:24 pm (utc) on April 4, 2007]
The advice to leave the grievance to a competent attorney is sound.
Especially one in a state where only one half of a conversation needs approve of taping conversations and who understands media warfare - not really as the blowback would likely be worse than the satisfaction. :(
In each case, I pointed out that this type of fraudulent behavior by a small company would not be tolerated by the respective agencies, so why should a large company be allowed to get away with it?
Presuming the credit card used was issued by some bank, they have a ton of card rules they must abide by.
trinorthlighting,
As specified originally, all 3 involved parties are in the U.S. (And as I mentioend in my follow-up, CARD's HQ is in Florida.)
On top of that, we have a incorrect fraud citation on our account that is affecting our processing rate until it's removed. And who knows if/when CARD will report that incorrect fraud citation to the credit bureaus, which could affect our processing rates for other cards. Or even cause our merchant account to be terminated. Without which, we're pretty much dead in the water.
So it's not a lousy $30 chargeback fee we're fighting for here, it's potentially the life of our company.
I think most us can guess who CARD can be. Neither of the two, that comes to my mind, have a huge online presence, or user base. One of the two might be more prevailent than the other, if we are talking high net-worth purchasers, or corporate purchases.
Clearly they do not seem to care about customers on either side. I would consider it a theft if the client paid the bill to CARD, yet card refuses to give me the money.
Rough guess is that most of the CARD purchases through us are corporate cards. Another rough guess is that CARD accounts for about 5-15% of sales each month. Most of those can probably use another card.
On our site, we took off CARD as a payment option several weeks ago. We still accept it from a few select customers because it's their only payment option and we'd rather pay the higher fees for them than lose the customer. Unfortunately, CARD is somewhat of a necessary evil, although we have tried to minimize the evilness as much as possible.
The most frustrating part was overcoming the assumption that CARD would behave fairly. From my dealings with CARD, it appears that their position is that all merchants are theives.
For future disputes, I now know what to expect from them at least:
No help.
[ic3.gov...]
If an issuer is misbehaving and tarnishing the card-scheme's reputation then there are remedies available between the scheme provider and the issuing bank.
AFAIK the ultimate arbiter for VISA is the VISA Council, and they are to be feared if you get on the wrong side of them.
If nothing else consider taking it up as a PR issue with the scheme's PR department.
Rgds
Damon
Damon-
Good for future reference. In this case, CARD is not Visa or MC. Although they have recently started letting some banks issue their cards, the card in question is not one of those. (In case it's not obvious by this point, I'm talking about the big A.)
Rgds
Damon
I figure that everyting eventually goes to accounting, and at year end, they can't balance the books, so they have to figure out where the extra money goes, and eventually you get your money back.
Customer Service reps may not care, but accountants and comptrollers go nuts when the books dont balance.
Oops, forgot that this isn't /.
