That is correct Joseph, the financial instituion cannot deny an allowable chargeback. We fought every cargeback against our company when we had it, and, did not lose. But, I suspect that R+ would not be so fortunate given what has transpired. Surely some claims would be valid.
Thanks, Joseph,
I guess what was causing confusion in my mind was the fact chargeback is used on the RingPlus forum to mean the act of a customer disputing a charge. Obviously, there is no guarantee that challenge will be successful.
From what I gather that is not the correct term in that case and chargeback should be reserved for situations in which the card issuer has already determined the customer is correctly and is collecting the refund paid by charging back that amount to the merchant.
The customer contacts their credit card issuing bank and requests to request a chargeback, in essence. You might say they are disputing the charge. They provide a reason from a list, and, provide some details (sometimes, some banks mostly assume the consumer is correct). The bank then files a chargeback against the merchant (via the merchant account they are using), for which the merchant can respond and provide documentation or reasons why the claim may be invalid. My recollection is the money is removed from the merchants account immediately, but, if you win the argument as the merchant, they return it back to you. But that's been a few years and things could be slightly different now. Back when we were selling things on the internet via a store, I think we had a flat rate $30 fee for a chargeback. So, we would lose the money and $30. But that's different based on the agreement. They also only allowed a certain percentage of chargebacks, and if you went over that, they cancelled your account.
As a consumer, over all the decades we've been using credit cards, we've filed one dispute. Generally, we have been able to reason with the merchant. With R+, likely good luck with that as you have to be able to talk to them.
That's with credit cards obviously, have found other systems (like Paypal payments via credit card) introduce other intricasies.
(bold added)
Indeed. I can attest to Ringplus not prevailing in at least one instance.:woohoo:
I have disputed several charges to my credit cards over the years, for example, a charge to Starbucks in Korea while I was in Indonesia as of the date of the charge.
My Cards all offer guarantees for the option of disputing charges. i really don't see the issue, of disputing charges, If I truly believe I have been wronged,
I sometimes wonder what is "right".
A few yeas back I had a refrigerator problem and called a factory authorized tech to fix it.
The tech assured me he could solve the problem.
After he left it was clear there was a new issue which turned out to be impossible to fix and was caused by the repair. (it resulted from using a different refrigerant).
I talked to my Consumer Protection Board and the advice I was given was that is was partly my fault since I had authorized the work without having fully understood that there might be an issue of incompatibility with the new refrigerant. It was not the responsibility of the tech to know that but rather mine.
After thinking about it, I accepted that view and did not file a dispute.
Over at Social there are cases being reported of credit card charges after a port out has completed.
Mean suggested to somebody that they file a support ticket! LOL. Not only is Karl on strike from doing support, but that user has no line and can't file a support ticket. No shield means what mods?!
Another member said they'd just charge back since the stress of dealing with R+ isn't worth it. Which means more losses for R+ thanks to mistakes by R+.
File a support ticket? Generally, the slightest mention of charge back is either deleted, attacked with a generic reference to the ToS or the poster is led to believe whatever happened is their fault. As for shields, at this point in time, there should be very few people left with shields. Some of the shieldless immediately get banned while others are allowed to remain because they're regular recognizable suck ups.
That site is basically a satellite forum for Ting and Ting thinks Ringplus is a joke. https://www.reddit.com/r/RingPlus/comments/5t4fiu/ting_is_savage_as_hell/. Mods can't relinquish control long enough to let the Ting Reps handle questions. They know it all. One such control freak had the gall to say:
"If people could just stop asking questions, this discussion would be shorter." https://social.ringplus.net/discussion/comment/148099/#Comment_148099. Go figure.
Many of the remaining visitors huddle up in the threads allowed to continue, repeatedly praising King Karl and each other. The echo is getting louder and louder and the whole site will inevitably implode as the ongoing circle jerk fades away.
I think it is possible to have valid charges after a port out is completed.
Given the known lag in data usage reporting, it would not be surprising if charges, which would, in fact, be valid, were posted after a port out completed.
Clearly the ticket route would be impractical but certainly, RingPlus would need to be contacted via the email address to demonstrate a good faith effort to contact the merchant as part of any dispute process.
Tickets to RingPlus go unanswered and are auto closed when you port out the line because the line is then deactivated. RingPlus ToS says no chargebacks unless you have tried to resolve the issue with them. How can you resolve anything when they refuse to communicate, even when proper channels are used? I was close to leaving R+ when I experienced their lack of response to tickets myself and then saw how they treated someone who completed a chargeback, cancelling their entire account and all lines. Who wants that kind of heavy handedness hanging over their heads?
Let's talk ethics. How ethical is it to sell a lifetime product with 100 year term attached to it, knowing you are operating an unsustainable business model, and refusing to return value to even those poor suckers who bought into this scheme 5, 30, 60 or 90 days before the end. How much value could one receive, having used 2 months out of a product marketed as being for 1200 months (100 years!). Are they not due a return of 99% of that fee, since less than 1% value was delivered? This is why chargebacks are happening, forget piddly topups fees, those paid for service. The Member+ product was wrong to even offer and now member + find out that the plus is meaningless as they get flushed without even the courtesy of a response to a support ticket, which supposedly they paid more to get faster...
Agree on the lag in reporting data usage.
But the cases I saw were for paid plan renewals!
As to whether to contact a company, yes you're technically correct. But I understand when the amount is small, why people just go to the credit card company.
Of course, most people don't know (I didn't until reading it in relation to R+), that every charge back has a fee of ~$25 that the merchant pays as well.
If it is for plan renewals there should be no problem getting a refund. That is clearly a flaw in the RingPlus billing system.
On the chargeback fee, Aleo101, who is an expert in this area, explained that apparently, it can vary by merchant and merchant service processor and typically is in the range of $10-25.
In thinking about it such a charge probably largely covers the overhead a merchant services processor incurs. From what I gather some of these companies outsource the review process to a third party in order to have a more "objective" review. That was the case at a credit union I used to have a card from
Probably having this fee is a good thing in that it encourages merchants who do business exclusively online to be more responsible. It would be very difficult to stay in business if a company is invoicing relatively low-value services and getting hit with $25 chargebacks on any significant percentage of total billing.
"Probably having this fee is a good thing in that it encourages merchants who do business exclusively online to be more responsible. It would be very difficult to stay in business if a company is invoicing relatively low-value services and getting hit with $25 chargebacks on any significant percentage of total billing."
It applies online and non online. Online is a bad business sometimes. The chargeback can indeed be the enemy of online. But so is fraud. A common scenario was always stolen cards. Someone has your card, lifted the number, whatever, and buys a $1,000 product from me. You get your bill, and, initiate a chargeback for stuff you did not purchase from me. Sure, you should get your money back. But the online merchant has not only lost the product potentially, but, now also gets to take an additional loss of the fee, plus, with enough of those lose his account.
People have little regard for merchants online. They assume I the merchant somehow stole your number or who knows what. In reality, I may be as innocent as you, assuming I followed proper fraud detection procedures. If you had just called me, then, I might have refunded the money and would not have had to pay the additional fees. Those chargebacks can really hurt a smaller business.
Of course, this is not something I am claiming applies to RingPlus here by any means. Just saying it can be abused. I once had a guy try and get a chargeback for merchandise he did not order or receive, two $800 power inverters (for trucks). Proved he did, and, won the case. So, the chargeback can be used as fraud as well.
Is that on top of the 3% to 5 % as high as 19%
Or just a flat rate of $25? I seen conflicting info