There's nothing wrong with using a right the card networks explicitly provide you. Even here on HN I see a huge tendency to play fast and loose with access to customer money, and corporation-on-consumer fraud has been normalized and is treated as no big deal. Chargebacks are a normal and expected reaction to that.
I'm sure chargeback abuse is a thing, but in aggregate, I'd argue people are still not doing enough chargebacks, because businesses are still engaging in unethical (& potentially illegal) practices of billing customers for services not rendered, or unclear pricing, or dark patterns.
Dark patterns with regards to payment should be a big no-no, and the fact they're still around suggests this behavior isn't being punished enough. So we should in fact have more chargebacks, until the situation becomes that it's more profitable to play fair and legal than try dirty tricks.
Unlimited, no-confirmation access to pull money just based on a static card number is a bug to begin with - ideally every money movement would be authorized on the spot or preauthorized in advance up to a limit.
But assuming we do have this bug, it seems like merchants are happily abusing it - "free" trials that are impossible to cancel, unexpected charges buried in 50 pages of T&C, etc. Chargeback is a completely normal reaction to this and I recommend it to everyone.
The heuristic I use is simple: did I expect this charge, and would I have agreed to pay for it had I been asked for upfront? If not, the merchant gets a quick email, and if they're not cooperating, taking unreasonable time to action it or are outright unreachable they're eating a chargeback and it'll be up to them & their processor to argue it further. They are welcome to put their processor/acquirer person on hold for hours (like they would do me if I were to play their game) and see how that works out for them.
> I'm sure chargeback abuse is a thing, but in aggregate, I'd argue people are still not doing enough chargebacks
But it only adds fees aka an extra tax; you are paying for it. Merchants just up the prices, banks up fees, conversion rates, etc etc. Someone is paying for it and it's always most likely you. The strange idea people have that 'this is free because it is law' is interesting. It is VCs (in neo banks), it is you in established banks. I rather do not pay for any of your chargeback behaviour really.
But I’d rather pay a small tax across everything rather than get stuffed for a much bigger amount.
Ideally, we’d have technical means to prevent people from getting stuffed (the oAuth-style token system I’ve described in other comments on this thread), combined with legal means to ensure businesses are discouraged from doing the stuffing in the first place (and those who do are promptly sued out of existence).
Until this happens, consumers (including me) will keep using chargebacks as their only way to defend their interests.
Also, if we were to magically rewrite the system tomorrow and eliminate card fees and the potential for chargebacks, do you really think businesses worldwide will suddenly lower their prices as a result? The market already demonstrated it is willing to pay the current prices, so the savings from lack of fees/chargebacks will end up in executives’ yachts instead or pissed away in more advertising.
I'm sure chargeback abuse is a thing, but in aggregate, I'd argue people are still not doing enough chargebacks, because businesses are still engaging in unethical (& potentially illegal) practices of billing customers for services not rendered, or unclear pricing, or dark patterns.
Dark patterns with regards to payment should be a big no-no, and the fact they're still around suggests this behavior isn't being punished enough. So we should in fact have more chargebacks, until the situation becomes that it's more profitable to play fair and legal than try dirty tricks.
Unlimited, no-confirmation access to pull money just based on a static card number is a bug to begin with - ideally every money movement would be authorized on the spot or preauthorized in advance up to a limit.
But assuming we do have this bug, it seems like merchants are happily abusing it - "free" trials that are impossible to cancel, unexpected charges buried in 50 pages of T&C, etc. Chargeback is a completely normal reaction to this and I recommend it to everyone.
The heuristic I use is simple: did I expect this charge, and would I have agreed to pay for it had I been asked for upfront? If not, the merchant gets a quick email, and if they're not cooperating, taking unreasonable time to action it or are outright unreachable they're eating a chargeback and it'll be up to them & their processor to argue it further. They are welcome to put their processor/acquirer person on hold for hours (like they would do me if I were to play their game) and see how that works out for them.