posted on October 30, 2001 11:08:25 AM
Hello All,
Recently I started a discussion ring for sellers who sell high-end designer clothes on eBay. The biggest concern that has come up has been Billpoint chargebacks. Some sellers have been hit for more than 12k even with signature proof of delivery. This group would like to take their concerns to Billpoint en masse and demand similar seller protection to what paypal provides. Billpoint is necessary to these sellers as many of our customers are international - which paypal doesn't handle. Some of the groups members have even considered a class action lawsuit. Anyway, the point is, if you'd like to be added to the ongoing discussion on this topic and included in a formal request letter to Billpoint on behalf of ebay sellers, please contact me directly at [email protected]. I'll also be checking this forum for responses.
Seller Protection does not cover international transactions. I would ask users to bear in mind that a chargeback is always a possibility when accepting payments via credit card. They are, however, fairly rare.
posted on October 30, 2001 07:12:19 PM
intl cc transaction is tricky to recover,on yahoo ,shops can block certain countries.
even if you manage to get thru to the bank which issues the cc,bank may not know if the card is stolen .
not to mention all that long distance phone bill you will spend.
my advice is decide for yourself if you want to do business with certain countries such as nigeria,russia,indonesia and romania.
then insist on wire transfer or intl money order,if they cant come up with it,ask yourself if you still want to pursue.
if your overseas buyer is sophisticated enough to have a credit card,ask yourself why cant she/he goes to the bank and get you a intl money order or wire 12,000 dollars to your bank account??
posted on October 31, 2001 12:12:14 PM
Let me redirect a little bit here. With bidpay you cannot do transactions over $500 and many of this group's transactions are quite a bit above that. I didn't mean for this to be a big paypal debate. I'm specifically looking for billpoint chargeback victims - those who had the evidence of the item being received by the buyer, but Billpoint still refused to protect them. Billpoint has no seller's protection policy as paypal does. If a buyer initiates a chargeback - billpoint automatically honors it despite the evidence and the seller is screwed. If this has happenned to you, please let me know.
posted on October 31, 2001 12:49:18 PM
so you are saying billpoint has no seller protection policy-domestic or overseas??
paypal has seller protection for domestic transactions ,11/6 effective just shipping to verified addr is not enough for transaction of 500 or more dollars,you need to have signature receipt.
lets not forget that,post a note by your pc or your log book.
i buy from overseas companies from all over the world and i can wire transfer money in their currency from my pc,my bank is BANK OF AMERICA and it has a high security website for that purpose.
it is free to me versus if i ask them to do it at the fx centre (30 dollars fee).
of course the fund has to be available in my bank account that nite when transfer takes place.
i dont know which other us bank has this feature and i dont know if any of your fancy overseas buyers have access to such feature,
but this sounds like big time fraud,buying 12,000 worth of designer clothes with stolen credit card.
for heavens sake,for that kind of transaction,ask for wiretranfer,it is hard to imagine a clotheir who buys 12.000 worth of designer clothes have not heard of wiretransfer.
some of my vendors do accept credit card but most do not as it cuts into their profit,wholesaler usually do not accept credit card.
dont be so anxious to close sales,ask yourself if this is too good to be true,use your intuition and your judgment,poke around and check their ass out.
no one is going to protect you if you keep making mistakes.
I'm going to respond via email but I am also going to post here.
You are fighting a losing battle. Merchants who operate in a card not present environment have this risk. It is a fact. Billpoint will not provide sellers with more protection than they themselves have. They aren't going to eat the loss. PayPal's seller protection is just a smokescreen, it is not real protection, it's just a play on words.
If you had your own merchant account, and you operate in the card-not-present environment (mail order, telephone order, internet), you are 100% liable for chargebacks resulting from fraudulent use of credit cards (or alleged fraudulent use of cards). There is absolutely no way around this. This is just the way it is and we merchants deal with it.
So, as a result, merchants who are savvy or have been burned, implement procedures and policies to investigate transactions to minimize fraud.
When you use a third party payment service, you give up that control. This is the risk you take. You don't know what PayPal and billpoint do to verify transactions or addresses. And because you are not the actual merchant account holder, you can't argue the chargeback issue on your behalf, you are totally at their mercy and rely on them to fight your case and they really have no incentive to do so. It costs money to process these things. With my merchant account, I have a relationship with my processor, I am their customer, if I am right, they will fight on my behalf. When you use a third party processor, you have no one to fight for you.
If you have been hit with a stolen card, there is no way out of it. none of us card not present merchants have protection against that. But if you are being hit with the "I didn't receive it even though I know I did," in a regular environment, there is recourse. When you use third party payment, you are absolutely at their mercy.
We verify shipping addresses and billing addresses, we call the card issuing bank for verification on high dollar amount orders, we also get signed invoices on high dollar amount orders and signature upon delivery. this won't protect us against fraudulent use, but it does protect us against the "I didn't receive its."
You can't do that with these third parties. You don't know if the address is the one that matches the card, you don't even know the card number, you just have no control. This is the name of the game and it's just how it is.
You can petition Billpoint until you drop over from exhaustion.
eBay sellers who are running a business just need to get savvy. If you're running thousands of transactions, you need to know how this works, you need to know the kinds of risks you are taking, you also should have your own merchant account to put more control back in your hands.
And if these sellers are getting burned big time on international transactions, I gotta wonder if they just ever did a simple search on credit card fraud, because there is so much information out there on fraudulent international transactions that sellers of target merchandise should really be on the up about that.
Welcome to the "real world" eBay just ain't for fun anymore.
posted on October 31, 2001 05:48:17 PM
material girl,you said-With my merchant account, I have a relationship with my processor, I am their customer, if I am right, they will fight on my behalf. When you use a third party processor, you have no one to fight for you.
i have a merchant account also and i save the order form of my shop with buyer cc,ship and bill address,authorisation code and zip code,addr verification.
i have talked to my processor and also my bank whom i at one time consider applying for cc processing,both said it is very hard to verify intl transactions.first the time lapse,banks are not open 24 hours a day,they may not know the card is stolen when purchase is made,if you want to call the bank ,you have to know the number and get thru the operator who speaks a different language,it is a waste of money to make phone calls.
someone on this board said what he does is to ask the buyer to fax him the back and front of the credit card he is using so he can keep as a record,now that will prevent anyone who just know the cc number and expiratio date but does not have the card in possesion.
also if he does have the stolen card,he is not going to fax and leave trails of a phone line on the fax paper.
worse we are supposed to ship within 2 days after charge is submitted.
thats why i said forget the credit card unless you have dealt with him before,go with wiretransfer or cashier check.
both my bank and my processor said the only thing i can do to protect myself if i want to accept cc is to make enough profit to make up for such losses.
which brings back to a sore point-where is the profit with cybersales??
posted on October 31, 2001 05:55:52 PM
actually it is ebay you should be going after-irregardless of insurance policy which has a max of 200 dollars after a deductible??
ebay is the venue provider and ebay allows fraudulent buyers to register and steal.
what does ebay do to prevent nigerian,russian,indonesian and romanian fraud??
with user id and shade and all that clumsy way of communicating with each other,i am surprised we still have any merchandise left for sale?
I can't recall ever processing an overseas transaction that was not American Express. Toll free number, english speaking operators... And those are very easy to verify. There are some countries within which it is nearly impossible to get an address verification.
So, maybe one solution is to only accept American Express for oveseas transactions. Canadian transactions are very simple to verify.
posted on October 31, 2001 06:21:32 PM
i do not accept american express in my shop becasue of extra cost,i know it is not expensive but why bother most folks if they have amaerican express,they have visa.mc/
come to think of it,axp always sides with their customers not the retailers,so we are more likely to lose .
my point is if the axp charge gets authorised okay with your processor,it does not mean it is not stolen,calling the overseas axp office may not tell you either if the owner does not report to axp.
i think it all depends on the transaction,if it is over 400 dollars,i may just ask him to fax me the front and back of the card.
posted on October 31, 2001 06:43:45 PM
"Let me redirect a little bit here. With bidpay you cannot do transactions over $500 and many of this group's transactions are quite a bit above that. "
I have a hard time feeling sorry for this group.
Tell them to require wire transfer.
posted on November 10, 2001 08:08:13 PM
what ever happens to this thread?
as i re -read the content,i wonder if these sellers have their brick and mortar stores to sell designer clothes?
not every weekend warrior on ebay has a store and has access to designer clothes,and i am talking about high end ones like coco chanel or yves at laurent??or is it just anne klein,ralph lauren??
if they have a store or if they are in the business of retailing high end items,they must know all about merchant account,either they have them in the store or heard enough about how it works .
so why are they fiddling around thru billpoint?
why dont they just ask these buyers to fax the cc and then process them direct??
