posted on October 15, 2002 02:05:59 PM new
As a final Billpoint farewell, we just received a chargeback from a customer from an eBay purchase that was made 5 months ago. Upon receiving notice of the chargeback request by the buyer for non-receipt of goods, we chased down the order paperwork and the Priority Mail Delivery Confirmation that was used for the shipment. Sure enough, it shows a completed delivery! Problem is, that Billpoint does not accept or recongnize Priority Mail delivery Confirmation as proof in customer disputes. We're out the $50.00 purchase plus Billpoint's outrageous $10.00 fee and we most likely have a buyer who has received our merchandise free and clear. He's a newbie and half of his handful of eBay transactions indicate suspicious problems.
To my dear customer and Billpoint:
Bite me! Neither of you will be missed! Take our money and run - LOSERS!
posted on October 15, 2002 02:48:10 PM new
Billpoint accepts signatures by the individual by whom the package is addressed. Carriers such as Federal Express and UPS capture signatures for delivery (most of the time). Our particular shady customer resides in Hawaii and he certainly wasn't going to be willing to eat the expense of shipping with a premium carrier. Priority Mail was $3.20 for this shipment. With UPS or Federal Express it would have been 6 times more expensive.
The reality is that regardless of how careful you are to protect yourself, you cannot often beat a cheat. Even if you have a signature on delivery, a cheat can always refute the signature or say that a package was not received. It's frustrating, but is also a reality in today's business world.
I certainly could not even consider the idea of disparaging my good name and reputation to beat someone out of $50.00. Thank God I was raised by good parents to taught me morals and the ability to know right from wrong. It's something that I'm taking pride in passing along to my kids.
I hope this buyer enjoys his new free sunglasses. I'm betting that he ends up paying for them 100 times over someday in his life.
posted on October 15, 2002 03:15:13 PM new
you are lucky it is 50 dollars plus 10 dollars chargeback fee.
chargeback fee can go as high as 35 dollars,
some yahoo shops are wiped out by cc frauds.
paypal will accept usps dc ,amzn will accept usps postal receipt with correct zipcode.
posted on October 15, 2002 04:09:06 PM new
I guess it doesn't pay to throw away your completed auctions or proof of mailing. I usually keep mine for a year. I am not a big time seller so I do hard copy most everything and I staple their proof of mailing and insurance to my copy. It looks like you are never safe from a bidder that wants to rip people off. I am sorry this happened to you, but I want to thank you for coming in here politly and explaining your case. Thanks again
posted on October 15, 2002 04:36:45 PM new
computerboy: Sorry you had to find out the hard way. Chargebacks are particularly galling, because you just KNOW the "customer" is gloating about having double-dipped.
Who says you can't have your item and your money, too?
We dropped Billpoint after we had one chargeback, like you. We calculated that the cost of obtaining Billpoint-compliant proof of delivery would be $6.60 per shipment...*exclusive* of postage! You can't just get a signature, you have to get a particular signature, and that costs extra.
posted on October 15, 2002 06:29:28 PM new
All of us sellers have scars from past war stories selling online. There's very few stories I wouldn't believe these days.
The thing that really ticked me off about this chargeback is the fact that the buyer waited 5 months to file his chargeback without so much as a peep before doing so. Nada. Nothing. Obviously not an honest guy. The fact that he made us dig through 5 months of paperwork to nab him at his game also got my undies crumpled. We process thousands of orders monthly and locating the hard paperwork was very time consuming. I'm betting a good number of sellers wouldn't have been able to track down paperwork after 5 months of would have been unwilling to bother. This reality only aids these bad apples.
On the flip side to this story, I can tell you of many occasions of meeting extraordinarly good people online. The folks that hop up and tell you that you double shipped by mistake and offer to send back the goods or the buyers that simply send a note of thanks after a successfully completed transaction. Fortunately these good folks outnumber the bad by large margin.
posted on October 16, 2002 06:21:13 AM new
what do you sell??
thousands of items per month,you can use fed exp pickup ,fed exp ground is competitive with usps priority these days and insurance up to 100 is included.
did he file chargeback after 5 months or did the paperwork from him to his cc issuer to billpoint to you take up some of that 5 months.
usually,it takes 6 week .
posted on October 16, 2002 09:04:09 AM new
We sell high end sunglasses via our www.shadesaver.com website and eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon auctions and the Priority Mail online label creation system is integrated into our processing system and procedures. Once the tracking number is generated and the shipping label is created online, a copy is sent to our customer via email. It's easy and clean and I'm very happy with the way this is working for us. Our customer like receiving a shipping confirmation with a copy of the actual label that is used for the shipment.
I'm quite convinced that this problem could have occured regardless of the carrier involved. If someone really wants to cheap to you out of a package, they will most likely be able to get away with it.
posted on October 16, 2002 10:04:43 AM new
I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I have
never used Billpoint. I have also never
offered Delivery Confirmation (it is a silly
ripoff anyway; the USPS is paid to deliver
packages already!) I offer, at buyer expense,
insurance with a return receipt (only). Why?
Because simply offering insurance provides no
proof that the package has arrived. I've
had a few times where the RR card has never
come back, and some where it arrived back
but was not signed, but overall it works well
and I've had NO problems. Good luck!
Z
---
"Cannot say. Saying, I would know. Do not
know, so cannot say". -- Zathras (Babylon 5)
posted on October 16, 2002 01:41:14 PM new
[i]So Billpoint tells you in an email that they don't accept DC as proof of delivery?
I couldn't find anything in their terms of service.[/i]
Undoubtedly Billpoint told computerboy, as they told me, in the "Guess what? You've got a chargeback! You're screwed!" email they send out when this happens.
Billpoint insists that it is only a "venue" or words to that effect and that the card processor insists on a signature. Billpoint sez: don't blame us, oh no, we're sympathetic, really we are. But we're going to have to ding you for this $10 fee anyway.
posted on October 16, 2002 02:15:39 PM new
Dear Billpoint User:
To try and prevent us from screwing you with a chargeback and our excessive fee, you must provide *acceptable proof of delivery* for this item.
*"Acceptable proof of delivery must be either the buyer's signature and the complete address where the merchandise was delivered, or the tracking information including the complete street address and the exact time of delivery. Postal receipts, shipping receipts, delivery confirmations that only include the city, state and zip are not acceptable"
What's wrong with the above policy you ask? No carriers provide all of the above criterian in their delivery confirmation reports, deeming them useless! Unless you have someone take a friggin picture of the snake signing for your package your screwed!
Nice policy. It would better read: Billpoint reserves the right to pay you at our complete discretion and may impose additional fees if we feel like it.
posted on October 16, 2002 05:43:06 PM new
billpoint behaves more like merchant account provider,only paypal seller protection program said usps dc is good enough for up to 250.
so in all fairness,say a few good words about that service.
posted on October 16, 2002 08:08:16 PM new
I like the Paypal service from a seller's perspective, always have. We've been using the service since it was first introducted without so much as a hitch and I also was an early investor in the company. I purchased company directed shares pre-IPO and sold my interest once it was clear that they were going to behave like today's typical publicly traded company. Fortunately for me, I sold when the stock was at an all time high and I made out very well.
Once Paypal made the agreement to be sold to eBay, it was clear that management was serving their own self interest, instead of that of the shareholders. Paypal had much more upward potential on its own, rather than now being tied to eBay's overall growth. The sale (all done with stock) benefited Peter Theil and company at the expense of the individual investors. This is nothing new.
Very soon, eBay will run Paypal as it runs all of its business entities and the end result will be to the benefit of eBay and the detriment of its users.
posted on October 17, 2002 10:57:30 AM new
This was always a known problem with Billpoint. If you have ever read their boards, even if one did comply with their seller protection policy they would still reverse the transaction and charge the seller the 10 bucks.
posted on October 17, 2002 11:04:47 AM new
askdaruma,
I have a merchant account. And I can tell you that Billpoint may function "close" to merchant account provider/processor. However, they do not compare in any way. I've had a few charge back attempts made and because my provider actually submitted my information to support my claim, no chargebacks were ever granted. Billpoint even admitted on their boards when questioned by members that many times they did not fwd the information after it was provided by the seller.
I hope eBay does find a way to keep PayPal as it is. Billpoint is proof that once they get their hands on something good it can go south real fast. Billpoint at one time had excellent customer service and support, then it all went to eBay's normal Canned Replies.
posted on October 17, 2002 02:28:27 PM new
Another Billpoint Rip-off that Paypal doesn't practice, unless I'm wrong:
If you refund a Billpoint payment - Billpoint doesn't refund the transaction fee. Paypal does.
That, coupled with the fact the Billpoint holds your funds hostage for 4-6 days before depositing them, instead of the funds being immediate available through Paypal (via the Paypal ATM/debit card), makes me shudder at the thought of eBay running Paypal.
Let's hope that eBay isn't lying when they talk about keeping the Paypal brand separate, and allowing fees to remain the same, etc. etc. {{{{{shudder}}}}
I know there's horror stories about Paypal aplenty, but I've never had a problem, love immediate funds availability, and got through immediately to them when I once had problems with accessing their site - their tech people were awesome and knew what they were doing.
