Dead End Customer Support / Chargebacks

Written by Tony

Thursday, 12 June 2008

(Tony steps up onto his soapbox...)

Ok, I'm getting tired of getting email replies like this from companies (like Amazon.com):

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We're sorry. You've written to an address that cannot accept incoming
e-mail.

So they can send you an email, but you cannot send one back. They must do this to make this hard to contact them and complain. They have your money and are keeping it - end of story.

You know, there is something we can do to get the message through. I'm a business owner and we take credit cards. We found out the hard way that unreasonable clients can initiate a charge back and dispute their charge. The bank (your bank) has to initially take your side and refund your money. It's then up to the vendor to make a case, if they have one. The thing is, if a company with a merchant account (account to take credit cards like Mastercard or Visa) gets too many of these, they can have penalties, have their rates go up for being higher risk or even loose their account.

So if you initiate a chargeback, they will take notice of you. Please don't always do it - it's best to try work things out. If you hit a dead end, where it's clear that a company doesn't want to help you, then go for it.

(stepping down off of the soapbox - thanks for letting me vent)

-Tony