A chargeback is when the credit card company withdraws the money for a transaction from a merchant’s account and deposited in a consumer’s following a dispute.
Basically, you do a chargeback when you feel like you’re not getting what you paid for, in terms of the quality or type of good or service.
To start a chargeback, contact your credit card company and ask. A dispute process begins and the merchant will have to provide proof they rendered service properly. If the merchant can’t provide sufficient evidence, the credit card company debits the transaction amount from the merchant’s account and credits it to your account.
Additionally, the credit card company charges the merchant a chargeback fee.
We urge consumers to only use chargebacks as a last resort and never before making several attempts to resolve an issue directly with a merchant. The last step before doing a chargeback is to threaten to use one. Sometimes that’s enough to change a vendor’s mind and let them know you’re serious.
Have you ever used a chargeback? How did it work out? — BEN POPKEN
More From Consumerist
-
Chargebacks: Protecting You From Scammy Online Sellers
-
Who Is J. Cohen, And Why Do They Have My Office Chair?
-
Newegg Refuses To Exchange Defective Laptop That Doesn’t Even Have Linux Installed
-
EA Disabling User Accounts Because It Thinks Any Contact With Amazon Must Be A Refund Request
-
Federal Judge Revokes Bail Of Bullying Eyeglass Vendor
@BELCH:
Ok, so let’s get this straight:
1. Your company advertises as a travel agency.
2. Your company makes a transaction with a customer, promising them a ticket for travel, but not delivering, and thus forcing the customer to waste time going through the rigamarole of requesting and explaining their reasons for wanting a refund of their money. (This usually entails proving to the CC agency that you have been defrauded and have not received services for payment rendered).
3. Should the customer have the great misfortune of coming back to you (perhaps because your company uses multiple names, or consistently undercuts other companies for ticket pricing to attempt to drum up business from suckers who don’t know how you operate, or you are the only travel agent in their area), you promise to deliver them services by a set date, then behind their back and without their consent, refund their money, allow them to continue with their vacation as planned, and only at the gate do you show up, demand payment for previous unrendered services, as well as current services, in cash, on the spot, without prior notification?
This also (intentionally) forces them to pay premium, short-notice fares on competing flights, as well as making them late for their planned arrival.
Gee, I wonder why your company gets so many chargebacks.
On May 5, 2007, I used my Chase CC to pay for the second half of upgrades to a vehicle we own. The work done by the shop we used was never completed and the work that was performed not only caused damage to our vehicle but also rendered our vehicle unsafe to drive. After repeated attempts to have the shop make good on their work I was forced to request a chargeback from Chase CC for $4371.72.
I assumed this was a futile as I thought the Credit Card companies would decline my dispute. To our surprise, we received a letter dated July 03, 2007 from Chase Bank that stated, “We have resolved this dispute and issued a credit to your account for the amount of the charge. You will see this on your next monthly statement.
I then used that available credit to have the issues with our vehicle resolved and thought all was good.
Today November 2, 2007 we received a letter from Chase Stating. “As you know, when you advised us of the dispute on your credit card account, we issued a credit of $4371.21 on July 03, 2007 while we completed research for your dispute…Based on the investigation; the final decision regarding the dispute was made in favor of the merchant.”
It goes on to say they understand the merchant did not complete the work but the merchant said the proof we provided was for ungrades and had nothing to do with his work or damages.
So now, as I used the card for 4 months to make corrections by doing what they did in reversing a decision they already ruled in my favor for has caused my account to be over the limit by $4371.72 plus over limit fees.
My question is how can this be legal and what should we do. We cannot afford to pay this over amount off and worse yet we are paying twice for the same work. What are my rights?
First of all I commend all of you who actually take the time out to call the company or write the company to dispute the charges.
Unfortunately too many customers abuse the chargeback and do them incorrectly. As a online store owner all of my chargebacks (very few) have just been a matter of the customer forgetting that they purchased the item.
Although it’s understandable, a simple phone call or email to find out what the charge is all they would need to do. Fortuanately most do. In other cases, they freak out and initiate a chargeback. It only serves to waste valuable time away a non-refundable chargeback fee that we have to pay only to hear “oh yeah I forgot.”
So most definitely if you are being screwed, initiate a chargeback, but if you just don’t recognize a charge, give the company a call first.
I know that some merchants sometimes do not follow with their promises, but I also know that shoppers abuse the system with BAD/UNJUSTIFIED CHARGE BACKS, so buyers be aware, SELLERS are now reporting unjustified charge backs to TROUBLESHOPPERS.NET. most likely some of you are going to be reported.
“SELLERS are now reporting unjustified charge backs to TROUBLESHOPPERS.NET. most likely some of you are going to be reported.”
Oh No. I’m scared.
It’s not really known as a ‘chargeback’. technically, it’s known as “disputing a charge”, and I for one will do it at the drop of a hat. There’s waaaay too many shopping options for me as a consumer to lose any sleep over any one merchant, and if they don’t make me happy, then screw ‘em – I dispute.
Postscript: If you wanna have a good chuckle, go check out that troubleshoppers.net site. What a buncha losers!
@cboh3k: Here’s a suggestion: Don’t pay the credit card. I’d take a hit on my credit report before I paid a $4K bill that’s not right. In a heartbeat.
@chameleonz: When I tried a chargeback with Visa after receiving a broken camera through eBay, I was told that they treat eBay differently, and I would have to go through eBay’s dispute resolution system and that eBay itself would have to refund my money. This was a couple of years ago, so maybe things have changed? I’ve done it for a duplicate charge from a restaurant though without any problem.
@troubleshoppers: Ha ha! Very professional website. I’m sorry to hear that in many cases a “seller losses (sic) money”.
@ChrisNF: I work for a Powerseller on eBay and I’ve seen people do chargebacks when they don’t get the resolution they want from a dispute. It sucks, but it happens.
I’ve only once done a chargeback myself. Ordered four 750GB hard drives from an outfit called MemoryLabs.com about 6 months ago; actually, I bought two of them myself, and my father bought the other two as a gift. They were advertised as Western Digital 750GB drives, with a specific WD model number, and as “OEM”; nowhere did it say “used”, “recertified”, “remanufactured”, “refurbished”, “white label”, “relabeled”, “rebranded”, or anything of the sort. Now, I’ve been buying computer parts to build my own systems for years, and when I see “OEM” in this context without any of the other qualifiers above, I assume that I am getting just the bare product in a static bag without any cables or the retail box; e.g., as packaged for actual OEMs. (This is, for example, the difference between buying an OEM CPU and a retail CPU; you get the a brand name CPU marked as Intel or AMD or whatever, but generally it will have a reduced warranty that might be provided by the retailer and not the manufacturer, and won’t come with a heatsink. But it’s the exact same chip inside and outside other than that.)
Anyways, received my four drives. They all had generic labels on them, with no indication that they were from Western Digital. I opened one of them and plugged it in to check the drive ID, and it had been reprogrammed to some generic string that read something like “HDD-750GB” rather than “WDC WD7500AAKS”. I called the company at this point, and after talking to a couple people, I got a fairly angry guy who insisted “you do not know what OEM means! This is an OEM drive, and that means it is a generic product!” He also told me the drives were USED, even though it said that absolutely nowhere on the product page. I asked to return the drives since they were clearly not labelled either externally or in the drive firmware as Western Digital, and were not advertised as used, and was told I absolutely could not return them without a 15% restocking fee. A few emails went back and forth, and I filled out RMA forms for the two orders. I actually crossed out the section of the form that said “I agree to a 15% restocking fee…” and noted “Not agreed to by customer” and initialed it; they actually just went ahead and issued RMA numbers, so I suppose legally they have absolutely no claim to the restocking fee no matter the circumstance, as they accepted my amended RMA forms and allowed the RMA.
So I shipped the drives back and my dad and I both got our original money back, minus shipping and 15%. I called Amex, my dad called Chase, and we each disputed the appropriate amount due to gross misreprentation of merchandise. Apparently the MemoryLabs folks didn’t like arguing with credit card companies as much as with customers, as they didn’t even contest the chargebacks, and we did get our money back.
I’m actually in touch with Western Digital’s trademarks department right now, as this same company is continuing to advertise WD products that have been re-labelled and remanufactured as if they were brand new drives. They seem interested in pursuing action against these wonderful MemoryLabs folks, which makes me happy because they wasted a bunch of my time when they could’ve simply apologized and given me back the money I got back anyways.
Sadly, I’m quite certain that the drives I returned were simply repackaged and sold to another unsuspecting customer as “OEM” WD hard drives.
Further note to self: Be more proactive checking resellerratings and other such sites. These folks have a lifetime 4.41 rating, and 3.50 for the last six months. I should’ve thought twice about ordering drives that were $15 apiece less than anywhere else, since it was indeed too good to be true.
@psychos:
Of course, I meant that to read “my dad and I both got our original money back, by disputing the shipping and 15% restocking that had not been refunded.”