The death of charge backs. Possible? Are you willing to do it?

Where do I sign up?

George, I am already implementing a plan that will keep me from chargebacks. I refund people right after they purchase. Yep, once they purchase I send them the refund instantly upon receiving payment. I have it almost all automated. I will never have to worry about chargebacks again and can concentrate on more products that I will refund instantly.


Seriously, I think a lot of people are not seeing the big picture. We can't control people, only go on with our business. More people than not are good and will do the honest thing.

Bring it on George. For any marketer doing serious volume chargebacks eventually become an issue.

For me personally, if there were a few hoops (and yes, even financial hoops) that would ensure no chargebacks I'd gladly jump through them.

Ken

George your theory and proposal is great however the sad reality is you can't eliminate charge backs.

I've flogged this horse to death in a few other threads.

Charge backs are done for a variety of reasons.
Many of the ones I get with my business are because the consumer doesn't recognize the charge on their statement. Our merchant account is under our corporate name but people don't recognize that - its different from the store names they go to.

I've experience this problem myself when I go through my PayPal account and see a subscription for a service. I don't recognize the name and have to do some research to figure out what it was for - online merchants need to add their product or website name somewhere so it triggers the customers memory.

I believe most people who do a charge back outside of the "I don't recognize the charge" reason are doing it because they don't want to deal with the merchant and risk hearing the word no when they ask for a refund.

For those people I don't think you will get them to stop their behavior.

I don't know how you can force them to open a paypal dispute.

Given the option I believe most honest individuals would like to deal direct with the merchant (if it was easy to communicate with the merchant - a lot of ebook sellers don't make their contact information available) but those with a me, me, me mentality are going to do a charge back no matter what.

I think in the downloadable products world - a small percentage of Charge backs are the results of the frustrations of consumers who can't figure out how to contact the merchant or those who didn't get an instant answer along with their instant download.

I believe though that a large percentage of them are from people who just want to take the easy way out.

Just my opinion

Thanks Thomas and Ken,

Even though at first it looks like you are taking opposite stands I don't think you are. Both of you are just stating the truth. You can't control people and you are affected by chargebacks if you do business online.

Even if you are not "Big" chargebacks can still hurt. In many cases smaller sellers are hurt more by the chargeback charges. And smaller sellers are frankly, more intimidated by them. Not to mention they are more likely to be "shut down."

Another change I've seen here on the WF is the compassion for the "little guy." I guess it's because there are so many of us "little guys" here now.

Don't get me wrong the WF has always been a great encouragement for all who want to learn. I just mean the air of "cost of doing business" and "$20k a month is chump change" being touted while the majority keep silent thinking, "wow I must be in the minority here I don't make 20k a month," is being replaced with so many speaking up and admitting, "Hey $20k is NOT chump change to me," and "The cost of doing business could kill me before I even get started."

It's always been fascinating to me that one man's chump change is another man's fortune.

Thanks for your input.

George Wright

Chargebacks are here to stay. Avoiding chargebacks can be done by making sure your customer understands who they are buying from, using address verification, sell a decent product/service, and some common sense. This will not eliminate chargebacks altogether, but will reduce them.

Here's a good example of what you are up against George.

Chris has decided that I have a faulty memory.

My point was - not every online seller has the product name associated with their business name and if you look up your subscriptions it will just show you who you are subscribed with - not the site or service (this is in Paypal)

Given the number of products I buy and services I subscribe to and review, I don't always remember that Joe Blow is actually "Learn my special secrets membership site".

If I don't remember then there are others who don't remember. I can tell you from experience that people do charge backs when they don't recognize the vendor name on their credit card statement.

Perhaps, Chris this doesn't happen to you because you because you only sell under one name, but I have several stores and I know a lot of the big dogs sell through more than one website or service so this is a common problem.