Matthew M. Johnson wrote:
>Saw an article in Wall Street Journal in last months
>"Ecommerce" feature section. The thesis was that the
>people being ripped off online are not the customers
>but the retailers..
AMEN Matthew ... if you have a link to the WSJ article, please send it. In
over 5 years of online business we have had only 1 truly fraudulent
transaction (ie, where our "customer" did in fact steal the credit card and
then use it to purchase from us). Yet, every month we receive several
"disputes" via the credit card company from customers who say they didn't
order from us (in most instances even after receiving the service for
several weeks/months AND even writing to us on occasion during the term of
thier agreement.
This seems to be fairly common in the online newsletter business. The only
one "getting frauded" the merchant. It's bad enough to have the credit card
company refund the dollars automatically -- they don't even listen to our
side of the story ... since we didn't actually have the credit card in our
presence (or a signature) -- they also deduct $19 per disputed item.
Just this month we finally hired a collection agency and we are now
assigning our contracts with these folks that "dispute" the charge over to
them. Probably should have done this years ago ... guess it's just a
maturation process ... I think more online business will start to do the
same ... just as "bricks and mortar" businesses would do with bad accounts.
Eric
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Received on Mon Mar 31 2003 - 08:27:50 CST
