Pete's random thoughts

Thursday, June 26, 2014

The customer is always right...unless he is wrong

I've just spent the last three hours on the phone with tech support, setting up a utility to access our credit card processing system.

Why? To dispute a "chargeback".

A chargeback is a function of a credit card company where the customer can make up any bullshit reason to cancel a payment that was made to a merchant.

Over the years, we have had to deal with 3 or 4 of them. I can tell you that we have never, ever had a legitimate chargeback claim and every time it has been some jackass trying to rip us off.

This particular one is a guy from Webster, Massachusetts who bought two Enfield muskets, received them, fired them, and then found out that they aren't the right muskets for his unit and wanted to return them for a full refund. We said no, once you fire them, you own them. He decided that since they weren't allowed in his Civil War unit, that meant they weren't suitable for the purpose for which they were sold so he was entitled to his money back. He was wrong...they are suitable for shooting, which is what they were sold for. His failure to check with his CO to find out what muskets he needed to have with that particular group is not our problem.

His next brilliant move was to file a claim with his credit card company, claiming that he had returned the muskets in person here on May 23rd....he didn't. He also claimed that he wasn't given our return policy or cancellation policy...another lie, because he purchased these two guns through our online store and to complete an order in the online store you need to check a box acknowledging that you read the terms and conditions which include both the return and cancellation policies.

In short, he is trying to scam us out of $1055.

What he is doing is considered credit card fraud in the state of NH. Credit card fraud over $1000 is a Class B felony, which is punishable by up to 7 years in prison and fines of up to $4000.

What baffles me about some people isn't so much that they try to rip us off, it is that they leave such a great paper trail of evidence when they do it.

By the way, folks...each time I have to deal with a chargeback, I need to invest 4 to 8 hours in preparing all of the chargeback reversal paperwork that is involved. I'm up to about 11 on this one so far and still have more to go. That is 11+ hours that WON'T be spent working on your guns and getting them out the door faster.