Preventing and Appealing Chargebacks on Online Business

geoff2915

I have a online business which has been going great, but this week got 3 chargebacks due to fraudulent credit cards. These were approved via Realex and goods delivered to name on credit card.
I have now lost the goods and Streamline have already taken back the money, even though I have appealed it.
Is there any come back with Realex or Streamline or do I just accept it?

BuffyBot

Alas chargebacks are a risk when accepting credit/debit card orders and you have very little room to appeal.

MyAmber.net

I don't know how Realtex works, but it's a good idea to check the address the credit card is registered to.
Thieves usually have only a stolen card and can't provide correct info that is not on the card itself. So if you can ask for an address during the authorization and send it to Realtex it may minimize the chargebacks.

Nuttzz

You'll find the in the small print that you have to suck it up.

You should look at the 3D secure system from realex to help prevent this. After you enter in the card details and the CVV you need a password as well

See this link from realex below, it states that if the order goes through 3D secure they cant charge it back

http://blog.realexpayments.com/2011/08/16/making-payments-easy-3d-secure/

drunkmonkey

Tbh, selling online at the moment in Ireland is like Russian Roulette depending on what your selling, if it's electronics don't waste your time untile postcodes are introduced. I've given up until then just too risky and i've been caught too many times.

geoff2915

Thanks for your replies. It was only after this happened that I became aware of 3D Secure. I was not happy that it was not recommended to me by Realex or my web designer on starting the system. It seems a no brainer, especially as it is free! Without it every transaction you make is actually liable to a chargeback at a later date.
However it is only been on 3 out of over a hundred orders so far, but one of them was the largest value order I had, so that hurts !
A lesson learnt- need to question any unusual orders before sending out the goods!
I am going to the police with all the details, although I don't expect to receive the goods back.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

It's not quite as simple as a no brainer. 3D secure is a flawed system in so many ways and will impact your conversions. Customers HATE it. Not everyone knows their credit card limit and the answers to some of the other questions they propose. People who don't buy online often have been warned by the banks about pop ups that ask for personal information, so when they see 3D secure they run a mile.

Also going to the police, while important to do, is likely to have little positive effect. Your goods will be used / sold by the time they investigate. Best they might do is call over with you to the persons house and ask them to return the goods (I've heard of this happening only twice), but you'd want to find a mighty nice cop. The usual response is "not my problem", once they even threw the report i prepared for them in the bin in front of me (thinking i had left). For a case you'd need the person who's card was stolen to press charges, since they didn't loose any money they usually aren't bothered.

TylerIE

To echo Ronan when Im using my CC to buy online I HATE 3d secure or verified by visa or any of them.

On any occasion that Im doing shopping for family with their cards I often back away when it comes up - with passwords changing and limits being revised its just not worth the hassle. Furthermore its often failed for me at the end of the process whenever I did use it.

TheWaterboy

RE 3D secure, I read a while ago that some big online retailer in UK put 3D secure on their website and noticed such a dip in conversion rates that they took it back off within 7 days.

Unfortunately all credit card processors are going to push the blame back on you because online retailing is a 'card not present transaction'

It just means that you need to do some further checking based on the information that is submitted by the customer. Contact Phone number and Email address are two noticeable ones. You will also notice the products they are buying - for example if a person purchased 10 items of a certain product then alarm bells ring. If your in any doubt about the order, email them back and ask for a landline phone number or work email address. If a user provides any of these it usually means they are genuine. A fraudster will not provide this information as it means you can trace them. From experience a fraudster won't even reply to this email request for information. You won't need to do this with all orders but just ones that you suspect.

I've also learned the hard way over the years with chargebacks - naivety didn't help!