Disputing a charge

[Skye12329]

Im just wondering on the following questions:

1. Who takes the loss? Personally i think its sad that someone has to take a loss but sadly theres those kind of people out there who try to fraud you.

2. How does the process work on the CC company side? (If anyone knows)

3. Not liable for any unauthorized purchases, this is a big statement said by every lender, however what do you do if you lose even though it was a fraudlent charge? I mean wouldnt the lender not be living up to their word on not being liable?

[Closingracer99]

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@Skye12329 wrote:

Im just wondering on the following questions:

1. Who takes the loss? Personally i think its sad that someone has to take a loss but sadly theres those kind of people out there who try to fraud you.

2. How does the process work on the CC company side? (If anyone knows)

3. Not liable for any unauthorized purchases, this is a big statement said by every lender, however what do you do if you lose even though it was a fraudlent charge? I mean wouldnt the lender not be living up to their word on not being liable?

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1:  I would imagine the bank takes the loss? because lets Say Person A stole you Credit card and bought $50 dollars worth of Food at applebees in Florida and it went through. Applebees would process the charge and put it on your account. You find out somebody in a different state that you live in bought something at an applebees. You dispute the charge and The bank goes investigates the charge between the Applebees and the bank. They find that you live in say New Mexico and never went to Florida and the person sig is not yours. The Bank then decides if you are liable because you did go to Florida and you bought the item/service then they will put the transaction back on. If they found out you weren't the person there who purchased the item/service then I would guess the bank would eat the charge and loss would be on the bank since Applebees in this case did a service and deserves to be paid for doing it.

In theory You are never liable for any unauthorized purchases. though we have obviously seen that isn't true Just go look in the Discover thread made recently about it.   

[Skye12329]

I saw the Discover thread and thats what made me start thinking and had questions. Because if Discover says your not liable for any unauthorized charges isnt that a really big statement to say. Like they should stand by their word.

[Closingracer99]

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@Skye12329 wrote:
I saw the Discover thread andthats what made me start thinking and had questions. Because if Discover says your not liable for any unauthorized chargesisnt that a really big statement to say. Like they should stand by their word.

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My mother had to dispute a few charges in the last 5 years with Discover and they never gave her any problems.    One was a double purchase where they charged her twice for it.    Also had to do it with some others but forgot why but it went smoothly.

I know that my Mother had to dispute recently with Chase and they basically said no because Hertz came back with proof with a sig for Rental insurance even though the sig wasn't even on the page where you had to sign it **bleep**? 

[Anonymous]

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@Skye12329 wrote:
I saw the Discover thread and thats what made me start thinking and had questions. Because if Discover says your not liable for any unauthorized charges isnt that a really big statement to say. Like they should stand by their word.

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Discover's Frog Protection ... don't judge, but I have had terrible experience with Discover in my disputes.

[Closingracer99]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Skye12329 wrote:
I saw the Discover thread and thats what made me start thinking and had questions. Because if Discover says your not liable for any unauthorized charges isnt that a really big statement to say. Like they should stand by their word.

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Discover's Frog Protection ... don't judge, but I have had terrible experience with Discover in my disputes.

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it's all YMMV I have seen discover do it pretty well unlilke Chase

[Callandra]

I work for an online business and this is what happens with us when you "dispute" a charge (issue a chargeback):

1. All of our CC transactions go through one of our three Merchant Accounts (we have three as our business is only several years old and the Merchants limit us; other business may have 1-? amount of accounts. (Apparently according to our VP, there's only about 8 or 10 Merchant Account services in existence)

2. The bank where the customer issues the chargeback sends paperwork/correspondence to the Merchant account and the Merchant account immediately takes the money away from us. 

3. Then it is our job to issue a rebuttal and try to win our money back. 

4. It is possible for us to win; we actually have one Merchant who gives us everything as they work with other businesses like ours and know that we get screwed 90% of the time ("friendly fraud" and the like). If we win, the money is given back to us and the person is forced to pay their bank (of course if they return the product to us, we will issue a full refund). HOWEVER, even if we win the chargeback, we still get charged a fee from the Merchant account (ours is high too as we're considered a "high risk" business given the type of merchandise we sell). That is why, in the case of double charges and cancellations, please CALL or EMAIL us; we will do anything (and I mean anything) to avoid a chargeback. Wouldn't you rather contact the merchant and get an immediate refund instead of going to your bank? 

5. I'm not sure what happens in the case of real fraud and we win the chargeback; my guess is the bank winds up footing the bill, but most of the time it's us who has to lose the money. 

EDIT: not sure if I was clear but for our chargebacks, it is the Merchant Account (a third party, not us, not the bank) that decides who wins. 

[Skye12329]

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@Callandra wrote:

I work for an online business and this is what happens with us when you "dispute" a charge (issue a chargeback):

1. All of our CC transactions go through one of our three Merchant Accounts (we have three as our business is only several years old and the Merchants limit us; other business may have 1-? amount of accounts. (Apparently according to our VP, there's only about 8 or 10 Merchant Account services in existence)

2. The bank where the customer issues the chargeback sends paperwork/correspondence to the Merchant account and the Merchant account immediately takes the money away from us. 

3. Then it is our job to issue a rebuttal and try to win our money back. 

4. It is possible for us to win; we actually have one Merchant who gives us everything as they work with other businesses like ours and know that we get screwed 90% of the time ("friendly fraud" and the like). If we win, the money is given back to us and the person is forced to pay their bank (of course if they return the product to us, we will issue a full refund). HOWEVER, even if we win the chargeback, we still get charged a fee from the Merchant account (ours is high too as we're considered a "high risk" business given the type of merchandise we sell). That is why, in the case of double charges and cancellations, please CALL or EMAIL us; we will do anything (and I mean anything) to avoid a chargeback. Wouldn't you rather contact the merchant and get an immediate refund instead of going to your bank? 

5. I'm not sure what happens in the case of real fraud and we win the chargeback; my guess is the bank winds up footing the bill, but most of the time it's us who has to lose the money. 

EDIT: not sure if I was clear but for our chargebacks, it is the Merchant Account (a third party, not us, not the bank) that decides who wins. 

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Thanks for the response you cleared up a lot for me, it sounds like the seller takes the loss, as for the highlight of red yes of course i would contact the merchant or place of business but not if it was a fraudulent charge. Thanks for all of the info, i learned some things today

[barbaralee]

I work in a Disputes dept. mostly for debit, but occassionally will do credit. What Callandra said is pretty much how it goes on our end as well, at least when working with Visa and Mastercard. First off, depending on the bank they can basically write off XX amount. The highest write off I see is $50, where anything being disputed $50 or less the bank will just eat the charge. 

If it is over the amount then the cardholder first and foremost needs to speak with the merchant first and try to get the money back on their own. Cases will get declined over and over just because of this simple oversight. If the merchant is not willing to work with them or credit them back then we can go ahead and open a dispute. When we submit the chargeback the merchant, in turn can submit a rebuttal. If they submit a rebuttal then the cardholder will have to respond back. That is a very, VERY general overview, there are actually quite a bit of ins and outs of the process which can make it very tedious. There are several time frames that are involved as well. Cardholder has XX amount of days to bring the transaction to our attention, Merchant has XX amount of days to rebuttal, Cardholder then has XX amount of days to respond, etc etc. 

I've seen merchants win quite often simply because the cardholder fails to follow up with documentation, or does not respond within the time frame.... but if the cardholder is diligent with following up and their documentation I have seen them win as well.... but it doesn't always end there, lol. I once had to send two disputes worth of documents to a cardholder who had disputed her transactions....won.... but then the merchant took her to court. Disputing a large transaction can be a painful process with Visa and MC, although from my understanding American Express is really good in regards to merchant disputes.