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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Over 30 Tips on Dealing with Credit Card Charge Backs

Over the years I've worked with several large companies that have had to establish processes and controls to deal with Credit Card Charge backs.  Charge backs can be fraudulent and they can be valid customer disputes. 

Chargebacks can occur for a number of reasons including double-charges, expired cards,  bank errors, stolen cards, or customers simply not agreeing that services or acceptable goods were rendered for the purchase amount.

Source: Lowering your Chargeback Rates

I came across a site, Advantage Processors, that offers a great deal of helpful information and tips on credit card processing.

Their help article (link in the source above)) identified by my account over 35 different tips on managing charge backs effectively.  Chargebacks can be a significant challenge for any company, especially small businesses.

Working for a fortune 500 company I have witnessed scammers attempt to bombard a system to receive shipments of products and then dispute the charges and never pay.  A company needs to have very solid systems and controls and the bandwidth to analyze credit card payment and dispute trends to see if a potential series of transactions might be part of a new fraudulent attack.

Sometimes these things are from a real customer that has a true problem with your products or services or that has possibly been double billed.  You have to be very careful to truly separate your valuable customers from the people trying to defraud you.  You don't want to lose a customer through an incorrect accusation.  You definitely do not want a fraudster to steal from your company.

Once I saw a trio of fraudsters attempt to purchase a hot new electronics item, 10 at a time and have them shipped to several addresses different from the credit card holders billing address.  I called the credit card holder at home after looking up their phone number in the white pages based on their billing address.

Someone had stolen their credit card, had ordered these units to have them shipped to what I later learned was a doorstep, where they probably intended to sell them to a pawn or a fence.  I attempted to help the New Jersey State Police stake out the door step and arrest the person that picked them up to track it back to the fraudulent order. 

Unfortunately, that particular neighborhood of New Jersey was not safe enough for the New Jersey State Police to run surveillance and a sting operation so we ultimately had to let them go.  I was dumbfounded by the reality of the dangerous neighborhood, but at least we never shipped a single unit to the fraudster.  We caught them and with some of these tips you can save your company a loss too.

 

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