[Asterisk-biz] Tomtelecom

[Paul]

trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:

>You have to do all or nothing, agreed, however becuase of that many
>banks (mine included in that list) will refund all if its merchant fraud
>(ie you got charged but didnt get goods).  I recently went through this
>with a merchant, my bank had no problems with the fact that some of what
>I was charged I owe, they refuned everything ...  Now, if the merchant
>doesnt have a bank account anymore (becuase you waited too long or they
>did everything to hide their impending doom) then it becomes a lot
>harder.  The reality is that the merchant does sign a contract that
>holds them liable for chargebacks even if that results in a negative
>balance.
>
>If you wait you are surely not going to get anything, but it doesnt hurt
>to at least try.
>  
>
There is a "funder" and a "merchant underwriter".

In the case of my visa/mc debit cards my bank is the funder. If they
approve an authorization against my card they have to settle(pay it). My
liability as cardholder is to my bank. My bank might fund transactions
when I don't have enough in the account and then charge me same way they
charge if paying an NSF check.

In the case of my merchant accounts the underwriters are amex, discover
and ipayment(visa/mc). All of them electronically deposit and withdraw
from an account I have with BankOfAmerica. My liability is to the
underwriter. If I close my bank account or don't have the funds in it to
pay chargebacks the underwriter still has to send money back to the
funder. I setup merchant accounts and online processing a few years back
for someone who took large deposits on garages and buildings that never
got constructed. The underwriters had to refund over $20k to cover the
chargebacks. He has since paid it back but I doubt he will be able to
accept credit cards for several years.

Paypal mastercard debit/atm cards work nicely when dealing with online
vendors. If I have $1 in a bank account they might fund a transaction
for $2 and charge me a $22 overdraft fee. Paypal will not do this. I
have used my own merchant account to charge transactions that were
exactly one cent over the paypal available funds balance. They were
declined. Also nice is that when you login to the paypal website you can
see the declined transactions. I have these card for myself and 2
corporations. Here's my how-to:

1) Setup a paypal account

2) After 60 days request the card. It's free.

3) Use the add money procedure to get a few dollars into the paypal
account. It takes 2 or 3 days for them to debit my bank account and make
the funds available.

4) Now go to websites of vendors you hate and give them the new card
number. You will typically see a charge for $1 that is voided a day
later. This is how they check the new card number when you enter it.

5) Return excess funds to your bank or spend them using paypal or the
paypal card.

Now when voipsuck won't cancel your account you can login to paypal and
see the declined transactions. They can't get money you don't have.

I have used this so far with 3 vendors. In all cases there seemed to be
no account cancellation procedure that worked. By "worked" I mean it
should take no more than 5 minutes of my time. Anybody keeping credit
card numbers on file should have a simple procedure. The customer leaves
a voicemail, sends an email or enters the request via the website when
logged in. It is the responsibility of the vendor to call me and confirm
cancellation of my account. Nobody should have to wait on hold in a long
queue to close an account. To me this is non-negotiable when the vendor
is retaining bank account or card numbers to collect payment.

I don't worry about leaving a few dollars in the account. The amount I
have is less than the amount any of the 3 vendors are trying to collect.
Hitting the account for different amounts(binary search for balance
available) would trigger anti-fraud alerts in the card processing. Also
it is easy to get a chargeback from anyone when the records show
declined transactions followed by successful ones for smaller amount.