CCBill just refunded over $5K to a customer without consulting me first
 

I need to rant. I'm beyond pissed about a situation that just happened today. Let me start out by saying I've been with CCBill for over 15 years now and up till now have been very pleased with their service for the most part. The way they handled a situation today has me considering dropping them from my billing options.

So here's what happened. I wake up to about $2K in refunds on a customer's account who has been with us regularly spending since 2015 with no problems. I call CCBill to find out what's going on and email the customer to get his side of the story. CCBill tells me the customer complained about fraudulent charges and refunded him through 60 days. I start getting frustrated and ask them why they didn't consult me before making such a huge adjustment to this customer's account. I then get an email from the customer saying it's some misunderstanding and he only noticed a $10 transaction that he didn't make and wanted it removed. He said the card company then took it upon themselves to refund everything after that. I don't really believe him but that's beside the point. I go back to CCBill and say it's a misunderstanding and tell them to please contact me next time something like this happens. They say it's policy to do whatever it takes to prevent a chargeback. I tell them I don't care what the policy is, the refund can wait at least a day or two until I have time to find out more information. Some time goes by and then another $1500 comes back. Now I'm super pissed and I call CCBill again to find out what's going on. They said apparently the 60 days worth of transactions weren't enough and this customer is saying everything over the past 6 months are fraud. We know this isn't true because the dude has been spending since 2015 and he cams with the models so we know it's him spending the money. Some time goes by and another $1500 comes back and I about lose it. I'm spam emailing CCBill support, emailing my rep, calling them. Like WTF guys, at least keep me in the loop before you go and refund all of my transactions. They processed refunds all the way back through June...JUNE! Fuck.

My whole gripe is that I feel like I could have prevented this if I was either allowed in on the phone call they had with the credit card company or they just waited a day or two to process the refunds giving me time to contact the customer. I do not like that I have no control over my refunds at all. This policy where CCBill can willy nilly go in and refund such a large amount without consulting me is BS.

Pretty bullshit on their part, but they probably have something about it in their terms of service.

Honestly, if you are processing since at least 2015 you should have been off CCBill and on something like rocketgate or securionpay years ago. Substancially lower card fees.

I have actually started using other billing options over the past few years as well but CCBill is still one of our main options. Maybe not for long :\

I'm just surprised this is your first experience with this in all these years. Get conned more often in an offline, card present business.

They've refunded people in the past for decent amounts (I want to say around 1K or so), but this was by far the largest amount and most frustrating scenario.

The hell . . .

Wow that's crazy.

Definitely not how things should work.

Curious how you make money ? every time i go to your site there is only ever one or two cam girls live, they must make you alot of money

I had a 5k like that - even the customer didn't agree with it. They guide the customer to say fraud now, even when all they usually want is clarification on what a charge is. It took me 6 months and 50 hours of calling and writing to get my money back.

Chargebacks have gotten out of hand.

Use IPSP's for the smaller transactions and get a merchant account for the bigger ones. That way if you have a person disputing transaction(s) covering a large amount of money, you'll have the ability to contest it.

Crappy for them to refund such a huge amount but when you process for tens of thousands of merchants, keeping chargebacks down is a top priority.

CCBill refunds six months’ yet credit card companies only go back three months. I’m disputing a payment from September and the credit card company is giving me a hard time for waiting so long. Delivery was supposed to be here in November and I raised the issue on December first.

I'm not going to get into a long discussion about it but processing is a pain in the ass with many fines and rules and bullshit so IPSP's are a great thing.

But CCBill has you fooled. That they do process for tens of thousands of merchants means it is far EASIER for them to keep chargebacks down. 3 out of 100 chargeback (could be one person) = 3%. They have a database of bad customers. They have the millions of long term, never charging back customers of thousands of webmasters. They charge you out the nose for this.

They used to brag about their airplane. They are not hurting for money. Not contesting things on your behalf should have them shunned but so many here depend on them that they always get the ass kissing effect.

Crazy shit. But part of the fun. Now go forward with the idea that this could happen again.

you know that there are laws that regulate them right?? :helpme:helpme they don't have to consult you. maybe inform you. i had paypal refund on a digital good i sold 3+ years later. if they chargeback on the credit they pass that to you. understand that? read up on the laws on that. i read it earlier this year for some fucking reason. :1orglaugh its some years or never expires it was fuckin crazy ass shit that i do remember.

We are a high-end / boutique site, so yes, the girls that we have on do well.

Anyways, I'll have an update on this topic tomorrow. I'll be talking to the CCBill risk department to see what can be done. So far the customer seems willing to pay it back but I'm not counting on it.

if they pay you back they set themselves up to be arrested :Oh crap

This is a pretty fucking, What are the CCBill fees? Still 15 percent?

No, credit card companies go back 180 or 183 days IIRC.

That's what always annoyed me: they simply accept chargebacks without even looking into whether it's justified and they are in no way helpful when it comes to trying to recover the money.

Gripe really is with the credit card as they have all the guarantees for the customer. I lost a lot same way once with chargebacks with hosting.

American Express hit me at almost a year.

Agreed!

^^ This ^^

" UNAUTHORISED transaction " - " Fraud " do the trick even over 6 months.

@SNRProductions Sorry to hear your issue , hopefully you get your money back.

damn, sad to hear

Did you contact the customer who asked for the refund? What did he say?

Disputing chargebacks is a PITA and when you're as big as them, it's not worth the time to do so with so many merchants and subscribers to monitor.

Obviously refunding $5K+ of charges should not have happened this way. Not defending them there. That was a bad move on their part. A refund of that amount should have flagged their risk team to first get in touch with the merchant to give them a heads up.

Why would that set themselves up to be arrested? I'd think it would prevent that, no?

Is this one of the downsides to promoting cams? Such giant chargebacks? Wow. :(

We are actually very good with chargebacks for the most part. Besides this, I think this year was our lowest chargeback rate yet. This one hurt though.

He's cooperative so far and willing to pay it back saying it was a misunderstanding but I'm not holding my breath. He said Friday he plans on paying it back. We shall see.

CCBill simply does not care about the webmaster.

They have also lost the vast majority of the people that used them.

How will he pay it back as his CC will surely be blacklisted now?

I dont know with ccbill and adult if its possible but from my experience with Stripe (non adult business ) is possible to unblock some client that have get blacklist by stripe for some reason ex: ( most of the time is client that Like to charge back they get Blacklist pretty fast ) but they will warned you about that is all on you LOL .

I sympathize with you mate, I began with CCBill back in 2005 and over the last few years it is like dealing with the DMV anytime something comes up.

Over that time I've made money, they've made money and I treated like shit. I've been slowly moving away from them because of it.

Dave

That's the entire point of paying ridiculous fees. More services and protections than you get going it on your own.

This is garbage.

Yes. I wanted to upgrade a cam portal I had in the early 2000's to have an option to pay and all the billers told me cams were too high risk with enormous chargebacks occurring at unpredictable intervals.

Wow would my everything be different if I'd gotten a yes then.

selling shovels to gold miners is the best idea

He made a payment yesterday via PayPal and says he will pay the rest by Friday. So we may come out ok with this...fingers crossed.

That's actually insane, never heard of anything like it, especially in this biz :helpme good on ya man :thumbsup

i had a few clients paying me back their chargebacks, usually what happened was that their accountant or bank didn't recognize the descriptor and initiated the chargeback without further investigation. even though the descriptor is clearly mentioned in the confirmation email.

also my biller wasn't very helpful in recovering the money, by now I see they go after those cases but i rather contact the people personally and have them send me the money by Paypal or something like that.

which in most cases worked cause the intention for the chargeback wasn't malicious.

:thumbsup :thumbsup . . .

Exactly - I understand the reason behind it all, but the balance has tipped way too far to the buyer. Now for fucks sake it is: "Caveat Vendor!"

Your users are addicted! What is your secret? Nice work getting the funds.

hope you get the rest back as well :thumbsup

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Recovered all funds today via PayPal! :thumbsup

This was a VERY INTERSTING case. Long story short, after speaking with the model about him and this situation, we feel this was due to one of two things. He claims he wasn't the one disputing the charges but we also know him to be a compulsive liar. So he either didn't realize he would get banned and thought we were such a big company no one would notice, or this is all part of his fetish with the particular model. I guess he's heavily into BDSM.

CCBill also acknowledged this was a blunder and will consult us on any refunds over ten transactions in the future, so I'll be keeping them as part of our billing options. So happy ending for the most part :pimp

Wow, Nice!

You had an honest customer, in the end, that got your money back. Why in the world would you keep ccbill?
Risk departments typically send you an email and talk direct with merchant first.
I hear chatter about 6 months charging back but never had any more than 4 months. Everyone understood 4 months so don't understand all this 6 month stuff. Visa and Mastercard

This.

At no time was CCBill proactive and timely regarding their communication with you the client.

They did however charge you steep fees related to the transactions. Correct?

Respectfully demand a refund and run away from them.

I'm also into tripping over the same stone twice . . .

If ccbill is still not charging merchant for chargeback fees, then they will refund away. I'm fairly certain they get the fees on the purchase, and also on the returns. And contact merchant if more than 10... wtf? 1 refund is 1 too many unless a really good reason.

To use CCBill and make more than 2K/month is just plain silly.

To use CCBill and make more than 2K/month is just plain STUPID.

No offense intended to the OP. When someone to your surprise slaps you hard, let it only happen once.