4 weeks ago, I made a financial donation to a charity by credit card. I now don’t want to support this particular nonprofit after all.
The charity technically isn’t entitled to anyone’s donations, so I can reverse the donation with no legal / financial ramifications, right? But would a bank allow you to reverse a transaction for no reason other than that you wanted to reverse it? (Their time limit for challenging or disputing credit card transactions is 60 days, but if I approved of the transaction at the time, is this really "challenging or disputing "?,
IIRC the credit card companies will reverse a transaction if it is an error, a fraud, or the company failed to deliver goods as promised. But if you specifically intended to make this transaction, unless the charity offers a “money back guarantee” option, why would you be entitled to a reversal? the only reason I could think would be fraud - they very blatantly misrepresented themselves, and you can prove that.
Challenging the transaction through the credit card company isn’t going to work unless you have some reason other than buyer’s remorse. As mentioned, you’ll have to insist there was some kind of fraud or other failure. The credit card companies do not want to be the enforcers of customer satisfaction; they’re mainly focused on preventing credit card fraud.
Contacting the charity might get you some relief. They may prefer to do a refund just for the public relations aspect of it. However, you made the donation - four weeks later, it’s a completed transaction and the money is theirs. They’d have no obligation to return the money. The fact that you weren’t obligated to give them money doesn’t change the fact that you did give them money. We might need to haul out a lawyer to interpret a more complicated situation, but this is pretty cut and dried.
In asking for a refund, you could also look at lodging complaints with groups like the BBB.
Think of it as cash. You give a $10 bill to a busker on the street. You can’t return 20 minutes later and take the $20 out of the hat. It’s now his money. It would be out right theft to take that money.
How would a charity be able to operate if it had to factor in the possibility that it might have to repay past donations later on, possibly after the monies have already been spent? I think some people are taking this idea of consumer and cardholder protection a little bit too far. Once a financial transaction is final, it’s final.
Charity’s do expect that some donors will change their minds. Pledge drives often stir up emotions and people call in with the best of intentions. The pledge packet arrives in the mail and they never return it with the cc info.
Are any of the charities requiring the cc when pledges are phoned in? I’ve donated to PBS and they always mailed me a packet with a form to return with my cc info or a check.
But that’s for pledges, i.e., for announcements in which a person states their intention to donate a particular amount to the charity. These pledges are not legally enforceable contracts, so there’s no way the charity could force you to pay if you change your mind. The OP’s question concerns a donation that has already been made. I’ve never heard of charities taking into account that a certain percentage of donations made will be revoked and have to be repaid.
I think one problem would be how the charitable organization cancels the tax receipt associated with the donation (I am assuming your laws are more or less similar to ours regarding charities). Easy enough if the tax receipt doesn’t come until later, but I get most of charitable donation receipts by e-mail within a few seconds of when I make the donation.
I recently had a problem where I intended to make a few individual donations to a charity, but instead accidentally made them monthly recurring donations, and didn’t notice until several months later (which put me into the new year). I called up the charity to ask if they could reverse the extra donations, and they did so for the ones in that calendar year, but said that they weren’t able to for the ones in the previous year, due to the tax receipts already having been sent out.
As someone who sells by credit card all the time, I have some insight into disputes and charge-backs.
First off, the credit card companies prefer (and in many cases insist) that you at least try to resolve the issue yourself. Call the charity and ask them to refund the charge. In many cases they will do what you ask simply to avoid unhappy “customers.”
If the charity won’t do the refund, then this becomes a situation between you and your bank or whoever issued the card and you will have to go by whatever they tell you. I suspect they will tell you essentially what dracoi said and that your change of heart isn’t their problem. This isn’t a fraud situation and unless you have some sort of “no questions asked” buyer protection as part of your card contract, they are under no obligation to do what you ask.
Bottom line - you can try, but you have no real leverage.
