I’m not sure who’s to blame here, but it isn’t the merchant!
Over at Merchant 911 we got an email the other day from one of our members. It seems that the system raked him over the coals for what appears to be an obvious error on the part of the processor. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard some not-so-good comments about the way Discover does business, but then again, we hear it about all of them. In this case, I’m not sure if it was Discover or the member’s processor that was worse but the story here, as always, is that the credit card system will take the path of least resistance toward avoiding their responsibility and it’s always the e-Commerce merchant!
The payment processor provided the merchant with the YYYM coding upon checkout, indicating name, address, zip code and CVV were a match. When the merchant was presented with the chargeback, he figured they had it licked. He had shipped the product to the confirmed shipping address and had a signature of receipt from the buyer. WRONG, this means nothing.
The merchant disputed and lost because of ” insufficient evidence supporting the claim.”
The merchant called Discover’s Loss Prevention Department only to be told that the info the payment processor provided was WRONG. When the merchant contacted the processor, their response was ” the merchant assumes all liability.” Pretty much the end of the road for the merchant! The merchant is a “risk” because of the information they provided to the merchant.
Am I surprised? Not really. With close to 4,000 members, I’ve just about heard it all.
Is there anything the merchant can do? Sure - he can sue for recovery and give the lawyers thousands of dollars to recover a few hundred. And don’t think for a moment that the industry doesn’t know this.
The lesson to be learned: Practice fraud prevention methods like your merchant account depends on it. Quite possibly, it does! You’re going to have enough troubles if you do it right. Don’t do it wrong!
Learn the best practices at www.preventchargebacks.com and stick with them.
