Show HN: ChargeBack.cc - Get your money back
chargeback.cc
chargeback.cc
The basic resolution service is free for merchants. They only have to pay or even sign up if they want to use any of the premium features to help them reduce future chargebacks. Hopefully this isn't too dodgy :)
I definitely think we need to be more upfront about what we get out of it. A lot of people seem skeptical when they first see the site.
Sometimes customers see their credit card bill, decide they don't want the service anymore, and instead of calling our number (printed on the credit card statement) or logging into their account to unsubscribe, they just call the credit card company and ask them to stop payment. It's really frustrating, because we gladly refund money if people aren't happy with our product.
Anyway, the issue is that sometimes the simplest thing for a user to do is call the number on their bill and ask for that charge to go away.
If you could partner with the credit card companies, and get your contact information or url listed on bills, that would be a HUGE win for you, and for startups like us. And if you could somehow save the credit card companies money, or even make them money, it could be a win for them to.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck. And post back again if there's anything startups can do to help you. :)
Need to fix up our copy though to make it more obvious what we're trying to do.
As for helping - if you register your startup at https://www.chargeback.cc/business it'll ensure that we can reach you if we receive a chargeback for your business.
all they have to do is acknowledge they're making a refund or change the customer's mind
Well, that means the merchant continues to be at a significant disadvantage during an even more complex chargeback process.
We started ChargeBack.cc with the aim to level the playing field a little more. Under the existing chargeback system in most cases the merchant receives very little information about what has gone wrong and who the customer is. Our aim is to use data to help merchants resolve chargebacks with less cost to themselves. By keeping the chargeback outside of the banking system we take away a lot of risk and cost from fee, fines etc... so that's one step. The next step is to give merchants the tools to provide the best response to the customer. Yes, it's still not going to be equal, but hopefully it'll help merchants spend less time, less money and generally get a better result than they used to.
However, if it is an attempt to reduce high costs of chargebacks that the banks usually create - this is a most welcome development that has potential to make this market more sane, which is great.
After they realize what they actually purchased which is a legitimate product but not appropriate for the customer, they just uses the chargeback process to get their money back.
* Despite the name, you want the lowest discount rate you can get: it's the fee charged by your acquiring bank on top of interchange, and is basically the only thing in credit card payments that you have any ability to negotiate. As you'd expect, having more chargebacks hinders your ability to get the discount rate lowered.
You're probably going to get a cease and desist letter at some point if you haven't already talked with the various financial institutions and have contacts there... you're almost certainly violating their terms of service (and maybe people filing through you are too).
You might want to be proactive about reaching out and making some contacts with the financial institutions.
Or maybe not, maybe it's OK. Just uninformed intuition there.
Also, you probably want to add some pretty serious language in bold saying "You must be telling the truth, not telling the truth here can cause serious harm, etc."
You probably also want to do some basic confirmation of a person's identity so you don't get whacky results. Ask for a phone number maybe, and occasionally spot check calls? I could see this being used for pranking, harassment, or inappropriate use (disgruntled employee, uninformed spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, etc).
I've spoken to a few financial instituions. The general consensus seems to be that we're not doing anything they didn't wish customers did already - which is contact the merchant for a refund before creating a chargeback. We've been told that in only around 18% of chargebacks have the customers even told the merchant they have a problem before filing the chargeback.
I do expect someone along the line will have a problem with it, in which case we don't offer services for customers with that institution (after attempting to change their mind!).
We do have a layer of manual checks on each chargeback before they are processed. I like the idea of spot phone calls though - might add that in!
Most people don't realize how easy a charge back is.
Most customers don't know what a chargeback is. Those who do will never find your site. Only if you sell your service to the credit card companies will this work.
The followup is how are you intending to step between customers filing chargebacks and their banks which are a phone call away?
This is especially true since any good merchant privacy policy/PCI DSS would of course prevent them from discussing anything with you without direct approval from the customer first - and if they did that, they may as well discuss the issue direct anyway.
Lastly, the toughest chargebacks can take months to resolve. Help with that (as a merchant) would be very useful(and so I can imagine you providing a compelling service), but are you really committing to take on a potentially complex issue for the customer? And wouldn't it be a conflict to represent both parties? Still, a tool that eases the admin of chargebacks could be great for both sides...
I like the service (just used mailinator to test it) but in the end I'm left with the feeling there is some hidden cost to me. I'd like if it was clear that it was a free service for me.
I notice you are Australian? Or have you localised your site really well?
>You must not modify, adapt or hack the Service or modify another website so as to falsely imply that it is associated with the Service, ChargeBack.cc, or any other ChargeBack.cc service.
You must not do illegal stuff?
>ChargeBack.cc reserves the right to update and change the Terms of Service from time to time without notice
Please change your policy on this, tos-dr.info will likely rate that section badly.
Have yet to get a notice as a "merchant" but I love the experience as a consumer.
The feedback about the "hidden cost" is great. I've heard that a lot. I definitely need to communicate somehow that we attempt to up-sell merchants with premium services and use the chargeback essentially as a lead to talk to them.
Yup, Australian :) Although the site does localise to the US and UK as well.
There will be a short delay before the merchant notification emails come out. We put them through a degree of manual approval and due to load from HN traffic it may take some time for them to be fully processed.
In those cases I assume the merchant has better things to do as well, and it seems like a service like this could offload some work from their support staff and, by adding things like exit surveys, turn those small number of bad experiences into positive, constructive experiences for all parties.
Essentially the basic chargeback resolution is free, but we charge merchants to access additional tools like exit surveys, the ability to configure questions on chargebacks for their business. Also we're working on a set of tools to help merchants reduce chargebacks in general - like domains to put on credit card receipts, that type of thing.
The value is that each chargeback is a lead to a business with a chargeback problem :)
I applaud making it easier for people to file chargebacks but shame on your business model.
Edit: after reading the explanation given below perhaps the business model is not as bad as it first seems - if that's the case, you need to make it more clear! It looks like you are encouraging people to file chargebacks and then shaking down the merchants for money with the threat of the chargeback getting filed if they don't pay you.