Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Charge back

Well, today was a first- we had a credit card charge back- that is when someone disputes a credit card charge and the cc company removes the charge and takes the money back from us. However, this was a fraud- we did nothing wrong. Here's the story- at the date auction, we auctioned off a pair of round trip airline ticket vouchers. A woman bought the tickets with a winning bid of $551. I processed the credit card payment over the phone and mailed the tickets to her on Monday following the date auction. I sent them via express mail with the USPS. The woman called me a few weeks later and told me that she lost the ticket vouchers. She said she had them in her bedroom and wasn't sure if someone had stolen them from her room during a party- she had looked everywhere for them. She asked if we could contact the airline. I explained to her that the vouchers stated on them that the airline was not responsible for lost/stolen tickets. There was nothing we could do. She mentioned contacting her credit card company to remove the charges- I told her that would not be appropriate since we had mailed them to her and if she reversed the charges then Project Smile would lose $551 and we had done nothing wrong.

Today, I got a letter from the credit card processing company's charge back department stating that the charges had been reversed because she claimed she never received the tickets. The company gives us an opportunity to provide a rebuttal. I immediately went searching for the post office receipt- it took me a few minutes to find the receipt which had the tracking number on it. Thankfully, I found it- called the local post office and they promptly printed out a copy of the receipt showing her signature for the envelope. I wrote a letter and attached the USPS receipt with her signature. Hopefully, we will get the money back- I can't imagine why we wouldn't since I have proof that she received the tickets. I feel badly that she lost the tickets since she spent quite a bit of money, but it was not our fault and it is a really crappy thing to do to pretend that you never received them. She had the tickets and it was her responsibility to look after them- you can't do what she is trying to do and get her money back from us. I don't know how she thought she would get away with it- especially since she clearly signed for the envelope.

So that was the mini drama for today. It was annoying that I had to take time out of my work day to address the situation, but it was important to take care of it immediately- that is a lot of money to risk losing. In other news, I have a cold and didn't get a lot of work done yesterday and today. It isn't even that bad a cold, but it is making me take a lot longer to get work done- I'm working at less than half pace. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be feeling a lot better.

Well, I'm off to eat grapefruit- I'm also trying not to eat anymore sour patch kids candy- they are part of my cold remedy food plan- even though they really are not providing any real help! Until tomorrow friends...

1 comment:

Alison Kinsey said...

Hi Catherine! I'm looking forward to the Santa and Stilettos event - I'm going to try and attend with a few friends. I have a couple of suggestions - not sure if they are already in play, but please create a public facebook event for it so that people can 'rsvp' - this helps to spread the word for it, and anyone who does RSVP, can then invite their friends, and it will really catch on! Event details can be posted on it directing people where to purchase tickets. If you'd like my help with this, let me know. I have a network of fashion bloggers in the Boston space, and an event like this would definitely be up their alley.