stupid customer tricks

trying to get a full refund

[LifeinAsia]

We run a hotel reservations site. Our policy on cancellations is a $15 cancellation charge plus 5% of the amount to be refunded. If it's cancelled after the deadline (usually 24 hours before check-in), the first night's rate is deducted from the refund. This is all pretty much industry standard and we have this policy linked from every reservation-related page. In fact, to complete your reservation online, the customer has to check the box agreeing to the terms.

A few weeks ago we received a phone call on Friday night wanting to cancel a reservation for Sunday. Since it was before the deadline, we said we would only charge the cancellation fee, not the first night's rate. The person then said the printout she had specified a full refund if cancelled before the deadline. I said there was no such wording on our site. She insisted that's what it said and would send me the copy when she returned home from her trip.

Yesterday, she sent me the html file that she said she saved when she made the reservation. I looked at it, and sure enough, it said "full refund." I immediately looked at the page on our site, which of course did not say it.

I looked at her page again and saw that all the graphics were showing as missing when trying to display. So I looked at the source file to see what was going on. The first thing I noticed is that all the HTML table files were nicely lined up with tabs (as opposed to on our site where almost everything is flush to the left). The second thing I noticed is that all the graphics links had been changed to something like ""../../Dreamweaver/test" prefixing the file name.

I wrote back to her and called her on the fact that the file had been edited with Dreamweaver.

Haven't heard back from her. :)

[lgn1]

The customer went to a lot of work to save $15. I would give her an 'A' for effort :)

[Essex_boy]

How low can you go?

[LifeinAsia]

Heard back from her- got the expected "I didn't do that and I resent the implication that I did!" response. :)

So I explained that we haven't specified a "full refund" since we started charging for cancellations over a year ago and that we've never used Dreamweaver on our site.

I said that whoever made the printout apparently tried to help her out and doctor the page for her. I told her I was sorry she was misled by her friend, but the cancellation charge still stands.

[derekwong28]

A person who would do this is a cheapskate, but I would would be careful in handling this. This is the same sort of person who would proceed to raise a chargeback. If that happens and if she happens to use a US bank, it will almost be impossible to fight this. She can claim that you alter the page after she sent it to you, and basically her bank wouldn't care for any explanation you may give.

We get this type of chargebacks now and again. One involved a customer who order two widgets from us. On receiving them, she then told us that she only needed one of them and will return the other. What happened next was that she raised a chageback against us saying that she had only received one widget. The chargeback went ahead despite she agreeing to withdraw it and admitted to having received both widgets.

[Essex_boy]

Chargebacks, major expense of doing business.

[FalseDawn]

Not being flippant, but for $15, I'd just have refunded straight away, regardless of whether the customer was "in the wrong" or not, and moved on...

[Harry]

Customers who try tricks to get cheap refunds and keep the products can get me down a lot. Enough to make me wonder if it's worthy to sell stuff online.

It's really becoming worse than it was.

[jdancing]

You shouldn't fight over $15, give it to her to avoid a chargeback. Our policy is if the customer wants a refund, they get it no matter what our 'written' policy is. Often times we credit their account so at least they have to respend the returned money with us. Also, why lose a customer over a few bucks? A merchant that gives customer special treatment will often gain a long term customer.

[Essex_boy]

gain a long term customer. - Thats an odd spelling of thief.

[corbing]

gain a long term customer. - Thats an odd spelling of thief

I totally agree with you there. That sounds like a customer I would not want to keep and would probably refuse to do business with in the future. BUT, as was said earlier, fighting a chargeback on this is a losing battle. Unfortunately, the customer will always win (in the USA). And, you'll be stuck with a chargeback fee of $15-$30 plus the original $15. Now you're out $30-$45 instead of $15 and potentially created a person who will be out for revenge and tell other people to avoid you (insted of just being happy that they screwed you out of the money and being quite). As criminal as it is, refunding the small amount of money is just much easier.

[kiwidesign]

Hi all,

I found this thread very interesting to read as I have had similar problems recently. I am part of a business that runs an ecommece site in New Zealand. We recently had a couple of people attempt to charge back goods for apparently no reason at all.

After sending required info to banks we havn't heard anything more.

I just didn't realise how many dodgy people are out there.

If someone "stole" money off me the way the $15.00 lady was trying to do - i would never do business with them again (although I would probably have given her the refund to avoid hassles first)

:)

[ikkyu]

Its a tough call, but you probably did the right thing in sticking to the stated cancellation penalty. And you did nothing wrong in pointing out that the page was apparently doctored, you could point out a cached copy on archive.org. Of course you don't make a direct accusation but thats undeniable proof there.

[Wlauzon]

A merchant that gives customer special treatment will often gain a long term customer.

This mantra has been around for ages, and it has never been 100% true.

There are about 1% of customers that are simply not worth the effort of dealing with. There are a small minority of customers that simply cannot be pleased by anyone for any reason.

Those are the ones we send to our competitors.

In the case mentioned, I would never have refunded the money - not because $15 is a big deal, but because of the attempted fraud involved. If they had simply explained something like "we had an unavoidable change of plans", I would have been happy to refund it - but when they resort to dirty tricks all the rules change.

[LifeinAsia]

Here's the latest update.
I saw that this particular customer had made several other reservations with us. I told her that we would compromise and only charge her the $15 cancellation fee, but not the 5% charge to recoup our credit card processing costs. She said she agreed. So we'll see whether or not a chargeback comes down the pipeline in a few months.
Hopefully, she got the underlying message of "Hey, I caught you trying to cheat us. So if you try to dispute the charge with your credit card company, we can give them evidence of your attempted fraud."

[Essex_boy]

Maybe but maybe not

[crashingflwrgrl]

"Customers who try tricks to get cheap refunds and keep the products can get me down a lot. Enough to make me wonder if it's worthy to sell stuff online.
It's really becoming worse than it was."

I agree. And what's worse is the CC companies automatically accept the story of the customer rather than the merchant, when it comes to chargebacks. I've submitted my 'documentation' many times only to lose in the end!

[syber]

It's too bad that bogus chargebacks can't be turned over to a collection agency. It would make these scammers think twice before doing chargebacks.

[Ledfish]

Unfortunately, until someone creates a financial incentive for credit card companies to not be so willing to refund the customers money and chargeback the merchant including the assessing of a chargeback fee......this problem will only get worse.

[Automan Empire]

Having caught her in a blatant act of fraud, I would have politely refused to refund the $15. In light of her prior history with the company, it was probably smart to handle it the way you did; different if it is a first-timer.
In my industry people always try stupid tricks, like tying every new problem to the last work we performed etc. I try to be accomodating, knowing that this is money that they would rather not spend, but need to. I can handle 95% of people, but there is a GROWING number of people who have no scruples about lying for personal gain, and they just laugh it off when called on it. "The customer is always right?" Not when they blatantly lie! I have strong feelings about not "rewarding" bad behavior. When you give a refund to a ripoff artist, you teach that person, and many others, that they can get away with it, and embolden them to do it more!
I had a lady buy a widget part over the counter (99% of our business is fixing widgets not selling parts.) She came back wanmting a refund because that wasn't the problem. I (kind of grudgingly) exchanged it for the part she wanted, and engraved my company name in it. Shortly after she calls agitated, the part I sold her doesn't work (even though I tested it before her eyes). I said bring it back and I will exchange it. Guess what, she brings the OTHER identical widget, WITHOUT the company name engraved on it, claiming that this is the part I sold her. She has spent 20 minutes over several phone calls trying to apologise and insisting that she was not trying to rip me off, and this $25 sale has consumed as much time as any $10,000 worth of "normal" customer interaction time! That is the monster you create when you give a ripoff artist an undeserved refund!

[luckychucky]

I just send my goon Paulie out to her house to break her freakin' legs. Or sometimes he'll break the thumbs instead, if he's feeling charitable that day. Try it sometime - great for all kinds of problem customers, and I feel so good inside knowing I got 'em back.

[LifeinAsia]

And Paulie can tell her that he gets $15/finger he breaks. So for her $15 refund, he's only going to break 1 of her fingers instead of 2.

[luckychucky]

Paulie's got a daily minimum, sorry to say. For sub-minimum orders, you might want to call Guido. Sometimes he's willing to do small jobs.

[Essex_boy]

I just send my goon Paulie out to her house to break her freakin' legs. - Thinkive seen his site