Waiting game with Discover dispute process over $220 chargeback.

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone, I am going through a real mess with Discover. It all started when I placed an order with Walgreens, the products were delivered to me spilled out all over the box and completely out of the containers. All around, it was a complete waste of $220 worth of products. A few days later I disputed through Discover after getting nowhere with Walgreens (as they said the spilled out products was not their fault and would not refund me). Subsequently Discover gave me a temporary credit while they investigated. Later on they charged Walgreens back for the total amount. This was around a month ago. I called Discover today and they said they still must give Walgreens time to respond to the chargeback (which is a period of 45 days), so far about 30 days have passed. I understand they want to give the merchant time to respond and give their side of the story, but it just seems unfair that Discover has this policy of waiting 45 days for a merchant to respond, especially when Walgreens already told me they were not going to refund. I told Discover this as well and even gave them the email of Walgreens replying back to me saying they would not refund, but Discover still gives benefit of the doubt to Walgreens. I think it is unfair to the consumer, I am exhausted and want this to be over with, has anyone else had the experience of disputing stuff with Discover? I heard they favor merchants a lot. 

[Strogen]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey everyone, I am going through a real mess with Discover. It all started when I placed an order with Walgreens, the products were delivered to me spilled out all over the box and completely out of the containers. All around, it was a complete waste of $220 worth of products. A few days later I disputed through Discover after getting nowhere with Walgreens (as they said the spilled out products was not their fault and would not refund me). Subsequently Discover gave me a temporary credit while they investigated. Later on they charged Walgreens back for the total amount. This was around a month ago. I called Discover today and they said they still must give Walgreens time to respond to the chargeback (which is a period of 45 days), so far about 30 days have passed. I understand they want to give the merchant time to respond and give their side of the story, but it just seems unfair that Discover has this policy of waiting 45 days for a merchant to respond, especially when Walgreens already told me they were not going to refund. I told Discover this as well and even gave them the email of Walgreens replying back to me saying they would not refund, but Discover still gives benefit of the doubt to Walgreens. I think it is unfair to the consumer, I am exhausted and want this to be over with, has anyone else had the experience of disputing stuff with Discover? I heard they favor merchants a lot. 

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After I caught my friend with "adult video website" charges on his credit card he told me he didnt authorize those charges. 

Well I pretty much forced him to call Discover that day and dispute them, because, how dare he allow fraud charges to stay on his credit card.

Discover refunded the charges, but unknown to me at the time he was so embarrased that he told me they were fraud; when he did in fact authorize them.

So from what I have seen, Discover sides with the cuistomer even when the charges are approved by the cardholder. 

Best of luck to yah OP. 

[14Fiesta]

I think it may be some legal thing that they have to wait "X" number of days in order to be fair.

[gdale6]

Walgreens should be filing a claim of damages with the carrier, its possible they didnt insure the shipment but that is their problem they are responsible in the end to the customer. The time periods that a merchant has to respond is not set by Discover but by federal law.

[Anonymous]

That seems like a bit long of a wait, but they do need to give Walgreens the opportunity to respond. 

The fact that you can provide an email showing that Walgreen's refused to credit you might not do a whole lot - I would imagine that an email could be relatively easy to fake (especially a screen shot of one) if someone really were so inclined. 

Also, it is not at ALL uncommon for a retailer/supplier of services to change their approach once a chargeback enters the equation. Walgreens likely told you no to protect their bottom line, in the hopes that you were a poorly informed consumer and wouldn't think to take recourse through the CCC. It's a sad fact of life that there is a LOT of fraud in this world, and so it's probably Walgreens default assumption that you are trying to get something for free (the fact that they seem to lack an internal process that can investigate these types of things and resolve them internally is a different matter altogether.)

But, the CC networks (MC, Visa, Discover, Amex - not the actual banks) only allow a company so many chargebacks within a timeframe. If a company exceeds that limit they actually lose their "right" to process CCs issued by that network - and thus lose a reveue stream, which is obviously a big deal. So, they might change their minds if it can potentially impact their bottom line in a bigger way than it would to just refund your money.

So, think of this wait period as arbitration - the CCC is really just giving Walgreens the chance to do the right thing here bu voluntarily refunding your money as opposed to issuing a documented chargeback. I would try to focus on the bright side if I were you: Discover has refunded your purchase during this timeframe, so you're not wasting utilization and/or accruing interest on those charges. I've heard of some issuers NOT doing this. It's a pain, but it could be much worse!  

[RobertEG]

You have a billing related issue on a credit card.

You can thus dispute under the FCBA, which provides rights not part of the FCRA dispute process.

[Callandra]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, it is not at ALL uncommon for a retailer/supplier of services to change their approach once a chargeback enters the equation. Walgreens likely told you no to protect their bottom line, in the hopes that you were a poorly informed consumer and wouldn't think to take recourse through the CCC. It's a sad fact of life that there is a LOT of fraud in this world, and so it's probably Walgreens default assumption that you are trying to get something for free (the fact that they seem to lack an internal process that can investigate these types of things and resolve them internally is a different matter altogether.)

But, the CC networks (MC, Visa, Discover, Amex - not the actual banks) only allow a company so many chargebacks within a timeframe. If a company exceeds that limit they actually lose their "right" to process CCs issued by that network - and thus lose a reveue stream, which is obviously a big deal. So, they might change their minds if it can potentially impact their bottom line in a bigger way than it would to just refund your money.

So, think of this wait period as arbitration - the CCC is really just giving Walgreens the chance to do the right thing here bu voluntarily refunding your money as opposed to issuing a documented chargeback. I would try to focus on the bright side if I were you: Discover has refunded your purchase during this timeframe, so you're not wasting utilization and/or accruing interest on those charges. I've heard of some issuers NOT doing this. It's a pain, but it could be much worse!  

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Once you charge something back, the money is taken right out of the Merchant's account (in this case Walgreen's). Chargeback statements come with a "By all means do not issue a credit as the cardholder has been credited already" message on them in bold font. So Walgreen's will NOT issue a refund as the cardholder as already been refunded. 

I'm actually surprised Walgreen's didn't give you a partial refund or something given how big of a company it is. Most likely they don't either care or thought something was fishy on your account. 

Once you issue a dispute, there is no chance for Walgreens (or any Merchant) to do the "right" thing. The money is taken from their reserve account immediately and they are billed with a chargeback fee. 

To OP:

I know 45 days seems like forever to you but trust me, by the time the bank does the paperwork and it finally finds its way to Walgreens' chargebacks department, quite some time has passed. For the business I work for, it's not unusual for us to get chargebacks that are past the respond-by date because the bank and our merchant account took their sweet time and couldn't get us the paperwork in time. 

[Michael982]

This might seam unfair but they have to give walgreens a chance to explain themselves. Most likely it will work in your favor and they will refund you money, but being in the IT field fraud is very common. Its pretty simple to manipulate a website or email toshow anything you want, thus I dont believe they did anything worng. Imagine being a small business owner and someone disputing something you worked hard on just to loose the profit you made. I imagine they give them 30 days and maybe an extra 15 day grace period for the time it takes to notify them and recieve a response.

[Anonymous]

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@Callandra wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, it is not at ALL uncommon for a retailer/supplier of services to change their approach once a chargeback enters the equation. Walgreens likely told you no to protect their bottom line, in the hopes that you were a poorly informed consumer and wouldn't think to take recourse through the CCC. It's a sad fact of life that there is a LOT of fraud in this world, and so it's probably Walgreens default assumption that you are trying to get something for free (the fact that they seem to lack an internal process that can investigate these types of things and resolve them internally is a different matter altogether.)

But, the CC networks (MC, Visa, Discover, Amex - not the actual banks) only allow a company so many chargebacks within a timeframe. If a company exceeds that limit they actually lose their "right" to process CCs issued by that network - and thus lose a reveue stream, which is obviously a big deal. So, they might change their minds if it can potentially impact their bottom line in a bigger way than it would to just refund your money.

So, think of this wait period as arbitration - the CCC is really just giving Walgreens the chance to do the right thing here bu voluntarily refunding your money as opposed to issuing a documented chargeback. I would try to focus on the bright side if I were you: Discover has refunded your purchase during this timeframe, so you're not wasting utilization and/or accruing interest on those charges. I've heard of some issuers NOT doing this. It's a pain, but it could be much worse!  

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Once you charge something back, the money is taken right out of the Merchant's account (in this case Walgreen's). Chargeback statements come with a "By all means do not issue a credit as the cardholder has been credited already" message on them in bold font. So Walgreen's will NOT issue a refund as the cardholder as already been refunded. 

I'm actually surprised Walgreen's didn't give you a partial refund or something given how big of a company it is. Most likely they don't either care or thought something was fishy on your account. 

Once you issue a dispute, there is no chance for Walgreens (or any Merchant) to do the "right" thing. The money is taken from their reserve account immediately and they are billed with a chargeback fee. 

To OP:

I know 45 days seems like forever to you but trust me, by the time the bank does the paperwork and it finally finds its way to Walgreens' chargebacks department, quite some time has passed. For the business I work for, it's not unusual for us to get chargebacks that are past the respond-by date because the bank and our merchant account took their sweet time and couldn't get us the paperwork in time. 

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It's true that once something is charged back, that they do inform the merchant not to issue a credit. It's a done deal at that point. 

However, depending on the card issuer, there can be an arbitration period, in which no formal chargeback occurs, and the issuer offers the merchant a chance to hear their side of the story. It's during this period that the merchant, seeing the writing on the wall, may opt to issue a credit (goodwill or otherwise) of their own accord, because it's not worth the hassle of fighting and the potential chargeback if the issuer finds in favor of the cardholder after the arbitation. 

Many years ago, I worked for a merchant whose standard operating procedure was to, in fact, issue credits if the cardholder mentioned anything about a chargeback (this merchant ran an online subscription service with a very up-front sign-up process. Still, people swore up and down that they never signed up for it, and certainly never ever put their CC information into the form, etc.) Many times when chargebacks occurred, we had no idea until we saw them, at which point it was too late, of course. However, there were indeed a handful of occasions in which we would be contacted by the card issuer of a cardholder who didn't recognize the charges. In every instance during one of those conversations that I personally was a part of, after pointing the rep to our website, walking them through the signup process, and confirming that the cardholder had in fact used the service through mailings of rewards to the cardholder address, the issuer found in my company's favor. I even had one rep say, "I have no idea how they missed this, it really couldn't be more clear." Needless to say, having been on that side of the fence, I wish more issuers had that type of process, instead of a flat-out charge-back with no research the second the holder states they didn't recognize something (though, being a consumer, I am certainly more partial to the latter process, of course.) 

From what the OP was saying, it sounded more like this was an arbitration process, vs a chargeback. If it was a chargeback, as you mentioned, it would be over and done with already as far as OP is concerned - if Discover made the call to chargeback Walgreens, they would have told OP to forget about it completely and simply informed Walgreens that this was what was happening. Of course, that's certainly not to say that Discover won't ultimately chargeback Walgreens if Walgreens won't cough up a credit and/or can't prove that they didn't mess up.

[Anonymous]

Update: Hey everyone, this whole dispute scenario with Walgreens is not going in my favor. The merchant Walgreens has decided to finally respond to Discover's chargeback which was done nearly 45 days  ago. They decided to reply right near the end of the 45 time period lol. But here is where it gets interesting, they sent in some documentation to Discover, which merely shows the delivery confirmation of the item, and that's it. Discover figured that this benign piece of information was enough to overturn the chargeback given to me, thus they gave the money back to Walgreens, and I have to pay for the charge. Even though Walgreens shipped products to me that were spilled out all over the box and refused to refund me. I mean... is this even fair. I don't know what Discover is thinking, but due to reading cyber posts about everyone else's experience with Discover dispute process, I now know that Discover does favor the merchant and will rule in the merchant's favor for any reason or any response they give. Walgreen's documentation did not even address the reason of why/how the products arrived to me in a "defective" and ruined manner. But Discover deems Walgreens response of "delivery confirmation" is acceptable. They said that they cannot force a merchant to issue a refund for item(s) if the merchant chooses not to or if it is outside their return policy timeframe. If Discover has this stance, then what is the point of dispute. Clearly Discover does not have people's back. If I have the eat the amount of the purchase, I will, because it is only $148. But it is the principle of the whole thing.