Do the usual protections of credit cards(you not being liable for fraudulent charges) also apply to seller based fraud? Such as you did make and authorize the charge, and the seller just pockets the money and does not provide the merchandise or service promised?
I see conflicting info on this, for arguments sake lets say you order an item online and the merchant just doesn’t ship anything to you and refuses to communicate.
Yes.
What conflicting sources of information do you see?
What do you mean, “yes?” My credit card company agrees to reimburse me if I get charlatanned?
If you do not receive goods or services promised, then you file a dispute with your credit card company. The credit card company gives the merchant an opportunity to respond to the dispute, and will ultimately make a decision as to whether the dispute is valid. If so, then the credit card company will execute a *chargeback *against the merchant, and credit your account for the amount of your purchase. Credit card companies tend to favor the cardholder.
I have been involved in chargebacks where a third party fraudulently used a card, but I have no experience with merchant fraud, so I’m not sure what evidence the credit card company requires from the merchant to prove delivery.
And I’ll echo the question: What conflicting information have you seen? This has been quite clear for many decades and is uniform practice for all credit card associations.
Just jumping in to re-iterate this. Fundamentally, a cardholder has the right to dispute any charge, and it is up to the merchant/merchant bank to prove the charge is valid. In the case the OP is describing, it is likely a letter detailing the dispute will be necessary.
If I recall correctly, the steps in the process are a little different than what CookingWithGas describes. Typically the charge is reversed while it is in dispute. If it is later found to be a valid charge, then it is placed back on your account.
I have had charges reversed when the seller did not ship, or provided bad merchandise on eBay.
I received something that was clearly in poorer condition than the auction said. I told the seller that it was not as described. He said: Ship it back at your own expense and I’ll refund the price (but I’d have to pay for shipping both ways). I refused since I didn’t think it was fair to pay to ship something twice for something he misrepresented. We couldn’t come to an agreement, so I called my credit card company. They refunded my money.
One of the many reasons to pay with a credit card through PayPal, rather than with your PayPal balance. There are lots of consumer protection laws that cover credit cards, and they will generally be on your side if you’re at all reasonable.
I have a somewhat related question. I have been of the understanding that if you order something from a website (or otherwise) and the merchandise does not get delivered (for whatever reason) that the customer is not responsible for payment and can dispute the charge with the credit card company. Yet … Some time ago I ordered some merchandise but I never received it. The store checked with UPS and UPS claimed they delivered it. I asked UPS to investigate and they still claim they delivered it. The credit card company refused to do a charge-back. Two months later my neighbor came over and gave me the missing package. UPS had delivered it to the wrong house! The neighbor had been on vacation and their friend had been picking up mail etc. and stuck the package away. I was only able to get a refund when I shipped the merchandise back to the store. (In the meantime I had bought another one from another store.) Shouldn’t the credit card company have been able to get my money back from the store in the first place?
Happened to me just last Christmas. I ordered something from a merchant’s web site, got the product, then ordered another one. A month later, no product, no response from emails or phone calls so I called my credit card company. They have a relationship with that mechant, since he takes their card, and they couldn’t get a rise out of him.
Is he dead? Is he out of business? Is he on vacation? Doesn’t matter, my card credited the money to me. If the mechant has a problem with that, he knows who to call.
When no signature is required, the driver scans the package when he drops it off, and as far as UPS is concerned, that constitutes proof of delivery. They have a documentation trail so you’re out of luck.
The only way to avoid such an issue is to request signature service.
We ship hundreds of packages every week and while these sorts of delivery problems happen, in my experience, it’s actually pretty rare. As always, YMMV.
Since the store really shipped the product, and they had “proof” from UPS that it was delivered, had the credit card company gotten the money back from the store then the store would have had neither the money nor the product, through no fault of their own. That’s not seller fraud.
In this case, the credit card company did apparently do an investigation, and chose to believe whatever proof UPS offered rather than your bare word that you never received it. (Underhanded buyers pull that scam.) In a “he said, she said” type situation, with an apparently neutral third-party (UPS) siding with the seller, why should the credit card company believe you?
If UPS had said “we got the package from the seller, but we lost it before delivery,” then UPS would have been on the hook (the credit card company gets your money back from the seller, and the seller gets it back from UPS via package insurance). If UPS had said, “we never got the package from the seller,” yes, the credit card company would have taken your side. Since UPS said in effect, “we delivered it, Carlarm is lying about not getting it,” the credit card company is under no obligation to do a chargeback.
I don’t think this is cut and dried. Normally, a seller is responsible to get merchandise to you. It doesn’t matter where in the chain the delivery broke down–if you don’t get it, and the seller cannot prove that you did get it, then they are still obligated to deliver.
However, I have noticed that many eBay sellers place the burden of delivery on the buyer. That is, they offer the buyer the opportunity to purchase additional shipping insurance to cover goods lost or damaged in transit. As near as I can tell, if the seller explicitly declines to guarantee delivery once they’ve handed off the package to the carrier, that burden can be place on the buyer. I don’t like it and would think twice about doing business with such a seller, but it seems that this is acceptable in the eBay world. If a seller made such a disclaimer in the case you describe where the carrier failed to deliver the package to the right address, the buyer would have no claim against the seller.
And I assume that this doesn’t work for debit cards (even though there appears to be some waiting period before funds are cleared) because the funds have already been paid to the bank/card company from your account.
I am not sure of the particulars but there is probably a difference as to whether you used the card as a PIN transaction, in which case it’s a lot like using cash, or whether you used it as a credit card, in which case the association (Visa, MC, etc.) should use the same rules as for credit cards.
I’ve used debit cards as a credit card before and have tried to get the bank to cancel the payment. No go. I always use a credit card now for online purchases.
I seem to remember some issue with American Express. Some sellers don’t take it because of chargebacks being easier for the consumer, or something.
I think with a credit, the bank is loaning you the money until you make the payment. With debit, they are just paying from your account.
One thing to keep in mind is that filling a dispute always costs the merchant money. About 10 years ago when I dealt with this sort of thing it was $40 whether substantiated or not, and the consumer got their money back during the investigation. If someone is complaining about their $30 item you’re much better off replacing it or offering a store credit for their next purchase or even just eating the cost than giving up $70 when they file a chargeback and best case scenario getting $30 of it back.
I was confused by the question because I thought seller ‘fraud’ was exactly what chargebacks were about, so yes, the credit card protects you in those circumstances. I use the word ‘fraud’ loosely, as I have lost out on this before being the seller, when it was clearly the buyer who was crooked.
Although it is a bit of a tangent, I was selling camera equipment on eBay in a ‘US only’ auction. I get contacted by someone in Malaysia who wants to buy it, and wants to save money on shipping, so he specifically asks me to ship it without insurance and pays y credit card. I warn the buyer of the danger of doing that and he accepts it and still wants it. Even without that, the Post Office provides proof it was shipped, and tracks the package from San Diego to Los Angeles. A month later, the buyer claims it never arrived and disputes the charge. I provide copies of the e-mail exchange but no dice, and I am required to eat the shipping cost and the equipment. That was the last time I ever did a foreign transaction for a high dollar item. What’s worse is that other sellers on eBay who this guy did the same thing to contacted me later saying he did the same thing to them. So yes, the credit card companies protect you even when you as the buyer are a crook…
Just because the seller says he’s not responsible if you don’t get the merchandise, that doesn’t mean he’s not still responsible. Ebay policy or the law might override such assertions.