Reversing a Credit-Card Charge Has Never Been Easier–Or More Abused
wsj.com
wsj.com
It's unfortunate that cc companies don't make it clear that these are not the same thing, and that businesses get hit with fees when customers challenge transactions. My startup has a $1.99/mo subscription, and when someone challenges a charge after months or years of happily using our product, they often don't realize that we get charged a significant fee ($15?) regardless of whether the dispute was valid.
The most annoying thing for me is when people (1) ask for a cancellation and retroactive refund, admitting that they didn't cancel before the renewal, and (2) then file a claim with their cc company claiming to have contacted us before the renewal went through. Even when I attach email proof to my dispute reply showing the true contact date and their admission it was late, the cc company always takes the customer at their word.
The only bright spot is that Visa (I think) started a new program to make it harder for customers to win on disputes where they've had a valid subscription and then one day decide it was fraud (as in, someone stole their card and signed up for it, not them). It never made sense that someone could claim to have been defrauded like this when the account is signed up with the customer's email address, which of course a true thief would never have used.
Fortunately we have a very low chargeback rate overall, but it seems like the deck is really stacked against merchants.
Other than that, the only credit card purchases I had issues with were done on online marketplaces (eBay and AliExpress) and in 100% of cases I was able to resolve it with the marketplace's own resolution system. In many cases, the vendor themselves refunded me without the need to have the marketplace arbitrate.