Serious Question - Would You Refund This Member?
 

So this guy joins my site, spends 45 minutes that night, and 30 minutes the next day downloading over a gigabyte of content (approx. 1-1/2 hours of video), and then cancels his Membership and requests a refund.

When I write and ask why he is unhappy with the site, he writes back and says that he was told by someone that it was a dating site, and that he could get the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the girls on the site.

Supposedly it took him over a hour of looking at and downloading porn from my site to figure out that it wasn't a dating site.

My site in no way looks like a dating site. In fact, I scanned my entire site which has over a thousand pages, and the word "dating" doesn't appear anywhere.

So now he is threatening to have Visa charge back the fee ($19.95), and says he will contact the BBB, and every site he can think of to let people know what I did.

BTW, I was polite and explained to him why I did not believe a refund was in order (he spent over and hour on the site and downloaded over a gigabyte of content), and that if anyone owed him a refund, it was the person who told him to join my site because it was a dating site.

Would you refund this Member?

ADG

No I wouldn't. He's full of shit. He's not going to the BBB and a bunch of websites admit he joined a porn site and downloaded porn.

Everyone threatens a chargeback when they are pissed. Get the evidence in hand, fight the chargeback and tell him to fuck off.

8 times out of 10, anyone that threatens all he just did is nothing but a trailer park socialite, don't bother.

Hell no!

Check this out.. One time this guy joined. I happened to actually watch his join turn bold in nats. I look up his info to check to see if it looks ok. 30 minutes later I refresh and i see a refund. I see the guy has aim. So I hit him up. He said, my kid used the card. I said BS. You managed to download 3 scenes and found your kid using the card, and refunded all in 30 minutes? He replies "Get a life."
smh
duke

It's one of those 50/50 things. On one hand he's a cunt and I'd tell him to fuck off. On the other hand a refund will cost you less if he actually does do a CB and good luck disputing those. 90% of the time you will loose a challenge as I have in the past, even when providing the biller with log files of all the content that was downloaded and ip access stamps.

-N

refund right away

or

counter with a "damage your creditscore" routine

I agree on your first point (he's full of bull), but then he uses the extortion/blackmail card (I'm assuming he will post his BS anonymously).

I have been polite. I already checked his background - he's a white collar guy.

I would have refunded him if he said that his kid used the card (I've only had a few of those over the past 10 years).

It's the implausibility of his claim that it took him over an hour, and a gigabyte of downloading to realize that my site was a porn site and not an adult site.

It's not about the $19.95. It's about the principal. I hate rewarding bad behavior just because it is expedient. It will only encourage him to continue doing bad things.

ADG

No I wouldn't.

Perfect. Most white collar guys have a wife. Let him charge back. Then send him a letter, and on the outside mark it "ADULT CONTENT". Send his IP address along with everything he downloaded (for added effect, send scene names), and demand for him to pay his bill. Problem solved.

Principles more often than not end up costing more money than they're worth. Refund the piece of shit, block his IP and whatnot and move on. Will take a lot less effort, money and getting pissed off over it. Sure, life's not fair, but putting shit like this behind you fast will make it more bearable.

My current thoughts are:

1) Hold my ground on principal, and make him aware that I will challenge him wherever he tries to smear me, by posting the facts and my position,

or

2) Refund him, and then tell him that I will put a lawyer on him if he libels me even after I refunded him.

If I do the latter, then he will have received what he wanted, content without paying.

It's such a small amount of money for either of us to fret over, but he is trying to make his case based upon principals which I believe are false.

I still think whomever told him to join my site should be the one, if anybody, to refund him (if that person exists), since that is the only one guilty of fraud/error.

ADG

No refund:2 cents:

tell him you'll sue him in small claims court if he does and his name will be forever permentally tied to porn in the public record.

Noted.

His address is a PO Box drop... :(

Oops. I meant principles, not principals.

As usual, you make a lot of sense...

Noted.

ADG

Says the man who ties himself to shady practices to make a buck. I agree with him. :2 cents:

So will mine... :upsidedow

I guess I could file a report with the Fraud department at ccBill, and that would presumably at least make it more difficult for him to scam others or purchase porn, since it might increase his negative scrub rating (assuming such a thing exists).

Can anyone from ccBill comment?

ADG

excuse me?

You have said that in the past you did some shady shit to make a $? No?

least i don't hide behind a fake nickname like a coward

This is my one and only nick here. I don't hide behind shit, I joined here and started posting. Why you get so defensive?

Geez

In the end, you are 100% correct my friend.
It's business, not personal. Can't let emotion control your stock
Duke

No I wouldn't

more interresting, what would ccbill support do? $100 on refund.. :/

I would just refund the purchase. Otherwise he'll just chargeback and that's worse than a plain old refund. I don't buy the threats or anything though.

Emotional Brain : Fuck him ... no refund and tell him you will follow up any of his threats with legal action. Mention fraud and other keywords :)

Business Brain : Refund and get rid of him

You most likely wont have a say in the matter. This is the sad reality. YOur billing company is always scared of loosing there licence with Visa. They always fold.

i see this type of thing alot around this time of the year...esp closer to the holidays as ppl need money for xmas...claiming they never visit the site or i canceled already blah blah blah...

in the end its cheaper to refund and add his card to a fraud database and/or block him....i hate it and emotionally i want to tell these people they are full of shit and all, but a refund is better than dealing with chargebacks...

to all the posts about press legal action or any of that is just plain gfy foolishness...are you really going to spend the time & money on legal actions for one member...come on people, stop puffing up your chest and acting all tough....emotions cannot dictate business...

Personally I'd ICQ a webmaster in his area and have said webmaster destroy the fuckers car. Then I'd give him a $19.95 refund and be really polite.

Refund the money and add him to the negative record database.

Worst he can do is chargeback, he's not going to the BBB.. that's bullshit. I would refund him if you haven't already. A refund is a lot better then a CB...

I do not enjoy or tolerate being lied to and/or threatened. You bought and paid for access to my website and the content contained therein after which you proceeded to make an effort to "download" a considerable amount of my product.. Which you have done. Over two thousand megabytes worth. Now that you've taken digital delivery of my product, you claim that you were trying to access a dating website and you want your money returned back to you.

Two questions:
1. While you were busy taking delivery of my product, were you looking for a date?
2. What could have possibly given you the idea that my adult website had anything to do with dating?

As I said, I do not enjoy being lied to, so you've got three choices:

1. Write an e-mail to me asking for a refund. This will be granted to you and your name and other information will be added to an industry blacklist so that other website owners will have the opportunity to be aware of your fraudulent actions.

2. Call your credit card issuer and ask them to send a chargeback through. This action is a fraudulent one and will be disputed. In the short term, you will have our $20 and in the long term you may be added to negative databases at several financial institutions. This will make your internet purchases of any kind somewhat difficult. In an extreme case, if you've pulled such a thing in the past, you may be made to face charges for what you have done.

3. Stop lying to me and pay for the product you've received. You would not go and steal from a store (or would you..), and I would think that considering your professional background you probably do know that this would be the right thing to do.

Ball is in your court, you, have a nice evening!!

Is a fight about this really worth $20? Think of the time you already spent messing with this guy. I'm sure you can find better things to do with that time.

Thanks for all of the input...

I'll probably refund the misanthrope, just to be rid of him, despite racist, misogynistic comments like this in his latest e-mail (FYI, I never brought up the issue of race):

He has an attitude like that, and yet he is trying to locate an Asian girl on a dating service?!? :helpme

ADG

Send him the letter I wrote
And ask him what wades is
And what any of that has to do with anything

If I ever chargeback on CC I would never tell you the reason... besides, I never have ever called my CC company to chargeback anything, except when I had fraudulent charges on my card through PayPal one time... but they caught it before I did.

I think if you download anything over a certain amount then you can't chargeback.

To be rid of such a massive pain in the ass is worth $20. Send him a refund and block his IP address on your server.

Well, what do you think the odds are of your contesting the CB successfully? Won't that cost you more than the $20 he wants?

I like your letter, but given his most recent rant (I quoted just one paragraph), I have no time or patience to deal with him or his lunacy anymore.

ADG

Of course it's better to lose $20 than have a CB .. but .. then this guy will just go and do it to you, and you and you and you and you .. People like this need to understand or at least think that there can be repercussions to this kind of behavior.

If you are on your own Merchant account tell him to bring the CB to you.

Once you show that he logged in, it's over. He will lose.

Give him a refund, but send it as a check in the mail, with your site domain as the return address.

I would refund and get rid of him, then ban him from ever signing up again.
$20 is not worth it

Yes, I would give him a refund, might as well because the billing companies will with a no questions asked attitude (Thank YOU Visa)

I would also add his card to the fraud database and make a note in his account explaining why


spaz

Hell no!
Cancel him, black list him as fraud and contact his issueing bank just for wasting your time.

Sound decision. Your time is worth more than the $20 refund.

He thought it was dating? Do you have an affiliate e-whoring your site?

I had few of such jerks before...they were always very rude and threatend with everything possible. I always replied to them that if they think they are just going to use my site and not pay, I will call the police on them and report fraud. They were all super nice afterwars and apologized.

What a bunch of poor business people most of you are.

Refund at once. You already lost way more that $20.

Worry about making money and spend your time productively.

Absolutely, refund him. A chargeback hurts you, not him.

Agreed :2 cents: