
Show HN: ChargeBack.cc - Get your money back - myotherthings
https://www.chargeback.cc/
======
aristidb
That seems a bit sketchy to me - black-mailing merchants into signing up for
your "service" of not sending them chargebacks?! Maybe you should explain why
it's not.

~~~
mario1900
Merchants don't need to sign up to resolve chargebacks. If we receive one,
we'll send them links to resolve it before it gets sent to the banks. They can
choose not too respond and it becomes a normal chargeback. Even if they do
respond - all they have to do is acknowledge they're making a refund or change
the customer's mind.

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.

~~~
blantonl
The existing chargeback process is already enourmously skewed against a
merchant from an online transaction perspective.

 _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.

~~~
mario1900
Absolutely. We've found that under the existing chargeback system only 21% of
claims are decided in the merchant's favour.

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.

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robryan
It is better if charge backs are seen as somewhat of an inconvenience to do,
so customers will think more about if they really want to chargeback. Lots of
things can and do go wrong in ecommerce, if anyone slightly annoyed reached
for a chargeback rather than trying to resolve an issue with the merchant it
would be a big hit for merchants.

~~~
blantonl
it is actually worse than that. There is certain type of online customer that
will literally click through "Interested->Purchase->Yes->Confirm>Pay>Done"
without every really looking at what they purchased or why they did so in the
first place.

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.

~~~
notatoad
it is actually worse than that. There is a certain type of customer that will
click through the whole process like you describe, and be perfectly satisfied
with their purchase but not remember the name of the merchant. Then when it
comes time to pay the credit card bill, it's an 'unrecognized charge' and they
do a chargeback. They don't look through their email receipts and try to
figure out what they've bought, they just initiate a chargeback blindly.
fortunately it's fairly easy to fight these as a merchant, but it still takes
valuable time.

~~~
saurik
Slightly _less_ worse than that (sorry to break pattern), but another
irritating example: it wasn't them that made the purchase, it was their son,
husband, niece, whatever; I often get people sending me threatening e-mails
about how I stole money from them, when in fact they share their credit card,
PayPal account, etc. with other people and didn't have the courtesy to ask
"anyone else know what this is?" before going all ballistic and demanding
their money back.

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notatoad
chargeback only works because most users don't know it exists. If you start
telling people all they have to do to get their money back from a merchant is
to click a button, it won't be long before credit card companies are forced to
get rid of it. please don't abuse this.

~~~
myotherthings
The goal with ChargeBack.cc is to divert unhappy customers away from the
traditional chargeback system and into direct contact with their merchant. It
is backed by sending unresolved disputes through the banks, but if we get to
that stage I consider the chargeback failed on our behalf.

~~~
notatoad
The banks will put you in direct contact with the merchant. From a merchant's
perspective, your service is just another unnecessary middleman to deal with.
The damage you're doing is advertising the chargeback feature. You are
encouraging users to initiate chargebacks (whether through your service or
not), which is not a good thing.

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lionhearted
Feedback / thoughts about potential pitfalls:

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).

~~~
mario1900
Thanks for the feedback.

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!

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ericcholis
Ugh...charge backs. I work in an industry that has high charge back rates and
amounts, most of the time because people are disgruntled.

Most people don't realize how easy a charge back is.

~~~
jarin
I do too, and I wish people would realize that we practically trip over
ourselves to issue refunds whenever they are requested, because we want to
avoid chargebacks at all costs.

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Sire
This business will fail even though the idea to improve the chargeback process
is a good one (for both merchants and customers).

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.

~~~
saurik
That seems to be how BillGuard (a site that seems to have a similar purpose)
is attempting to play this: to provide a service to users, but really attempt
to get the ear of banks as a value-add to their online offerings.

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mikeash
I've never had trouble with chargebacks, personally. I try the merchant, and
if they don't play ball, I contact my card issuer. It's been pretty painless,
so I don't see the point of this service. Is my experience just abnormal?

~~~
BryanB55
I think it depends on your credit card company. American Express is well-known
for very good customer service and easy no hassle chargebacks. My Bank of
America card was a bit more of a hassle though trying to find the correct form
to fill out online then they had to mail me papers and I had to sign them and
send them back and talk to 3 different people.

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jasonlotito
So, who are your customers? Businesses with chargeback problems or customers
filing chargebacks?

The followup is how are you intending to step between customers filing
chargebacks and their banks which are a phone call away?

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saurik
How is this different from BillGuard.com? (edit:) Well, I mean, for the
features this site offers; BillGuard also seems to scan your bills proactively
trying to help you deal with charges, but at the end of the process seems to
be fairly similar: I (the merchant) receive an e-mail from them rather than a
chargeback, combined with information that might be useful to look into the
matter and fix the problem. (I only started dealing with BillGuard yesterday,
so I don't know much about them yet, and certainly not much about this new
site.)

~~~
mario1900
The concepts are similar, but the implementations are quite different. In
order to use BillGuard you must sign up for constant monitoring of your credit
card. ChargeBack.cc is more of an a la carte service - you only use it when
you want to perform or resolve a chargeback.

~~~
stpsg
"In order to use BillGuard you must sign up for constant monitoring of your
credit card" - simply not true. Anyone can file a dispute, without signing up.

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tyrelb
How would consumers find out about you? If I buy something online, I would
call merchant first, then bank. How would I find out to use you first vs.
going to merchant and/or bank? Thanks!

~~~
Evbn
Advertising like this thread.

~~~
tyrelb
Would be hard though... PR/blog hits only lasts so long.

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Petefine
In my experience as a merchant, disputes can be very time sensitive (i.e.
travel cancellations). On one hand, finding out about a misunderstanding from
you (rather than a chargeback fax two months later) may allow a much easier
dispute resolution and be so be valuable to a merchant. But on the other hand,
customers who cancel/complain by charging back instead of calling the merchant
may therefore lose a chargeback because they miss an agreed deadline. Adding
your service as a middleman could lead to further missed deadlines.

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...

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iusdfhsdfiuh
Your terms and conditions at the end of lodging says <http://james/something>

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.

~~~
myotherthings
Ah thanks for that TOS fix.

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.

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eCa
I think a page called "Who we are" [1] should answer that question, and not
describe "what we do" (again). Especially with something involving such
sensitive information.

[1] <https://www.chargeback.cc/who-we-are>

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twodayslate
I'd rather just file a chargeback with my credit card company. It is just as
easy imo.

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breck
I think there is a big need for this type of service. The majority of my
transactions are fine, but there are times when I have a problem and getting
it resolved is a huge hassle. Like last month when the NYTimes charged me $15
but a bug in their database prevented me from actually using my account. Took
2 painful hours to get a refund.

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.

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malbs
Well I had a disputed charge I was planning on seeking to have overturned, so
I've just tested the chargeback.cc system with this dispute as a trial

~~~
myotherthings
Please do. If you have any feedback, please post it here or email it to
james@chargeback.cc

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iusdfhsdfiuh
[http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?language=us&doma...](http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?language=us&domain=chargeback.cc)
<\-- might want to fix that

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kkt262
One thing that popped right out to me was how similar the top banner looks to
the Paypal top banner.

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hnwh
free services.. hmm.. whats in it for you?

~~~
mario1900
Premium services for merchants.

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 :)

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wilfra
This is the online equivalent of "protection" money the mafia asks for when
they say they're going to burn down your store if you don't pay them.

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.

~~~
mario1900
Maybe using the word "protection" on the business page was a bad idea.
Merchants don't need to pay us to resolve chargebacks. We just try to make
their services better in the future through premium data services. Please see
this comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799225>

~~~
wilfra
you're also not being honest with your users. you're not actually filing
chargebacks on their behalf, at least not at first. you're asking for their
permission to harass/spam/threaten the merchants they have a problem with -
then filing a chargeback if you don't get what you want.

