Dealing with revecom chargeback?

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Posted by Gurudev, 01-30-2002, 04:05 PM
Hello, I have a customer who asked for a chargeback for a transaction that was done is November. This is for an ad listing and the transaction was done via revecom/paysystems. We have clearly stated the no refund policy. So, the question is how do you deal with a situation like this which involves sales of soft goods? Can the customer say after two months that the transaction was invalid and be entitled for a chargeback? Is there a way to avoid this? With regards to hosting pacakges, how do you deal with such a situation and how common is it? thanks
Posted by BeDifferentSolutions, 01-30-2002, 05:07 PM
1) Create numerous templated responses. - This saves your time as if you do business online, get use to chargebacks. 2) Fight chargebacks that are fraudulant (What we call ones that were issued to avoid payment or get free service) by disputing them. - This will sometimes work as the scum bag trying to get free service might not want to do the paperwork to dispute our dispute. 3) If s/he re-disputes - we lose. No signature. No proof. - Write it off as a business lose. I hate Visa/MC in that they are definatly not for the merchant. We win maybe 5% of the chargebacks done on Visa/MC. There new marketing pitch says it all. AMEX is great. We win 75% of all disputes because they allow "proof of service" and sign up forms.
Posted by Ematic, 01-30-2002, 06:57 PM
I'm with Ematic and we are a payment processing platform like Revecom or 2checkout. Generally, a customer may institute a chargeback for up to 6 months after the transaction date. But there may be a couple things you can do to help document the sale. Did you obtain a back of card number, referred to as a cvvs number when the card was charged? This may help fight an unauthorized transaction as it does prove that the customer had the card in possession at time of order. The other side of the coin is service/product delivery. If this was an advertising service that included monthly billing did the charge occur on their card for multiple months? Its kind of hard to say that service was not rendered if billing happen over multiple months. Revecom should be your advocate with the credit card company and should be able to provide assistance in fighting the chargeback. Brian Ematic Last edited by Chicken; 01-31-2002 at 03:09 AM.
Posted by Gurudev, 01-30-2002, 08:15 PM
This was for a one-time classified advertising that was charged by revecom in November. I got an email today that the chargeback was issued because it was disputed. Only thing I can think of doing to avoid this is to send an email confirmation and get a reply from them before we pulish their ad and save a copy of the email. This is the first one we have had but what bothers me based on this example, is that anyone can just place an ad and then after 2 months ask for a chargeback and as a seller you can not do anything even when you have delivered what was promised - that sucks! The customer has to complete two forms on our site before making a payment at the revecom site. So, it can not be a fradulent order and I have all the contact information of the person. I have replied to revecom that we would like to reverse it but we will see if/when they reply.
Posted by AussieHosts, 01-31-2002, 01:57 AM
We've had one chargeback, and it was through Revecom. Not that that is their fault specifically, as it could have happened through any third party processor. Unless you have your own merchant facility and have the facility to deal directly with the bank or the card company, you are stuck behind a third party processor who may have alot more to deal with than just your own situation in detail, or may not have any luck defending a chargeback for you to the card companies when the sale is online without a signature. Our local card processor, bless their cotton socks, requires a faxed authorisation form. We can see when and if these forms have been sent back, and both us and out local provider send plenty of reminders until they are. Problem sort of solved...at least there is a signature on file. The above chargeback was after terminating a clients account for mailbombing a cat lover's domain name with 23,000+ emails one night. So much for trying to do the right thing. We had another attempted chargeback (a largish one), which we defended rigourously and it has not gone through (yet...). We wrote to the clients current host, their University admin and IT areas (an MX record is floating around there for the domain) and a few other select target recipients with full details and logs of the adult hosting account, and it appears that we may have gotten lucky this time. Until some form of recognised digital signature technology is introduced and widely embraced, we're at the mercy of clients and card companies. I doubt we'll ever be allowed to impose on our own privacy rights enough to ever become accountable for our actions though. Regards Gary
Posted by Ematic, 01-31-2002, 01:55 PM
This still may not work because Visa/MC have stringent rules regarding what they'll accept as proof of authorization. It may work for you in court if you provider is logging IP address, but not with credit card companies. These types are transactions are considered 'card not present." What would work, and what we can do for our clients at Ematic, is include in the email or registration page an area where the customer can place their credit card under the page (after printing) and pass a pencil over the card to get an imprint (like kids do with a penny to make an impression). They could then fax it or mail it to you. Its important for the number to be visible. If there is a dispute you now have an imprint of the card that documents authorization to charge the card. They could still dispute for non-delivery of service but at least you have covered yourself on authorization. Make sure you include details of the transaction and place for them to sign their name. I can send an example by email to you upon request. I know its a lot but for higher ticket items or new customers it may be worth it. The other item is to get back of card numbers (cvv2) as this shows the card presence for online transaction. Revecom should be able to help you on this
Posted by Gurudev, 01-31-2002, 11:56 PM
Thanks for your reply. It's funny, I emailed the lady and she emailed back to me saying that she did not know who paysystems was and the charge was from paysytems, not our site and hence she asked for a chargeback. Amazing! Now, I have emailed revecom and I am waiting. Their phone number on the website is not working. God knows if/when they are going to answer my email. I hope and I wish! Do you think revecom can reverse this, now that we know that the reason was one of a confusion and not for lack of product delivery?
Posted by Ematic, 02-03-2002, 12:07 PM
Your best and fastest solution may be to contact the customer, now that she acknowledged the charge as valid, and ask her to contact her credit card company and stop the chargeback. This may be your only solution as revecom won't be able to document customer signature etc so they can't do it for you. See if the customer will help you out. Good luck

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