At 12/6/01 4:50 PM, ezgoing8 wrote: >The charge backs notices came from the same company where we paid the >authorize.net fees, not from the bank that had our merchant account. We >also sent all documents back to them to dispute the chargebacks. I assume >they were associated with Authorize.net, as they set up the account with >them. They may have merely paid Authorize.net their fees each month after >collecting them from us.
Yes, the latter is the case. The company that sent you the chargeback notices was representing of your acquiring bank; AuthorizeNet didn't have anything to do with it. As a "favor", the bank set up the account with AuthorizeNet for you and paid AuthorizeNet the monthly fees, probably so they could get a markup on it. The company sending you the messages wasn't CardService International, was it? <shudder> I hated their service so much that I put up a Web page about them, then they hired a huge law firm to threaten to sue me for libel (even though the page was perfectly accurate; it was the "we've got deeper pockets than you" school of lawyering). Anyway, some companies like this act as a "representative" for a number of acquiring banks, even though for all intents and purposes they might as well be the bank, they're so closely linked. >We attempted to switch merchant account banks while with Authorize.net and >were told we could not do so. Well, if you contacted AuthorizeNet, that's true -- they can't switch you. A merchant signs up with AuthorizeNet after the merchant already has a contract with a bank; the bank is the real entity you're doing business with. AuthorizeNet is only tangentially involved, providing a side-service, so they can't switch you to another bank unless you sign up with another bank yourself. (I have done exactly that in the past -- signed up with a new bank and switched my AuthorizeNet account to point to it.) >We did switch merchant banks when we switched to Cybercash and we have >successfully defended against chargebacks with the new bank. We provided >documentation to prove the individual used the hosting services and have >only had to pay one of the last four attempted chargebacks. > >Whether the client backed down or not I do not have any way of knowing. All >I know is that we submitted the documentation for IP address for the order >and the code number on the back of the customer card along with proof that >the hosting service was used and we did not pay the chargeback nor the >chargeback fees. Almost certainly the cardholder backed down; it's just a coincidence. That often happens; the cardholder simply doesn't remember the transaction or doesn't remember your company name. If the cardholder had insisted it was a case of unauthorized use even after seeing the documentation, it would have been a chargeback. Neither the CVV2 code on the card nor the IP address is considered proof of a valid charge by VISA or MasterCard, unfortunately. If there is any discretion or judgment involved at all in whether to process the chargeback, the discretion is at the end of the issuing bank (the bank that gave the cardholder their VISA card), not your acquiring bank. It is smart to get those, though, as many potential thieves don't have access to the CVV2 code or get scared off when informed you're recording their IP address. They'll go away before even attempting the fraudulent transaction. To get on topic, when is OpenSRS going to start offering merchant services? :-) -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
