Stomping out chargebacks at Visa...
 

For those who don't know me, I work for Visa up here in Canada. I'm a Customer Service rep, so when a cardholder has a problem, they call me up.
Often enough, I get calls for cardholders disputing charges from Ibill, CCbill, Globill, etc. When I get a call like that, instead of beginning a chargeback right away, I advise the caller to visit the Customer Service site of the processor and fill out the form to get their membership info. If at that point, they still don't recognize, then they can call me back to initiate a chargeback.

Recently, a co-worker and myself have been working on a project which we're going to present to the director of my call center. The project would entail incorporating my procedures into training, so that every agent in my call center will advise the cardholder to check their charge online first.
Personally, I stop an average of 5-10 chargebacks a month. Not a lot, I know... but if you multiply that by 100 agents in my call center, that's 500-1000 chargebacks stopped a month.
If the project is successful, it'll spread to the other two call centers for my bank in Canada, meaning approx. 1500-3000 chargebacks getting stopped a month.
At that point, my girlfriend who works for Visa as well, but a different bank, will present the idea to her director and hopefully have the same results at her bank. With two banks successfully implementing this, it might eventually be presented to Visa Canada or Visa International.

Now obviously, a lot of people won't bother to check the charge and then just send the letter to initiate the chargeback. Or they'll check and send us a letter anyways. To avoid cases like this of cardholder fraud, my co-worker and I came up with a second plan. When a cardholder disputes a charge, we obviously have their card number, but we usually don't have their email address and never have their subscription id. You need two of those to check charges at Ibill, CCBill and Paycom. Without that, we wouldn't be able to prove that the cardholder signed up or not. So we called up the "Big 3" and all three agreed to release email address/subscription id and even ip addresses to us provided we have the account number. That way, we'll be able to filter out which chargebacks are valid or not.

Why am I posting this? Two reasons. First, I want you guys to know that all of us at Visa aren't assholes keen on ruining adult webmasters (myself being both a Visa employee and an adult webmaster). Second, I want feedback, opinions, comments, etc. Do you guys think this'll work? Do you think it'll make a difference, etc? Let me know! Thanks!

visa boy is back..

what does that mean?

Some people are just retarded.

It's a good idea - but I have my doubts that it will work. Does Visa care enough about chargebacks to deal with porn affiliated companies on a daily basis? Even to include this in their training manuals?

I dont think so.

But it is a good idea

You kick ass man. Let me know if there's any way to help.

C'mon.. we are talking 2% here..

Visa doesnt care.. really..

if visa boy really works for visa you can compare his plans
to a mc burger flipper sending an email to management
about his idea to put more meat on the burgers to satifsy
more customers...

However, as always i enjoy the classic naive gfy replies..

Lostmind, believe it or not, yes. Each chargeback costs us $25, plus wasted time when the charge shouldn't be chargedback. My manager and my department director are very keen on the idea, they just want to hear all the details (methods to check charges, some estimates, etc). At the very least, this will for sure be implemented in my call center, stopping 500-1000 chargebacks a month (not a lot, but better than nothing, right?). And if it works in my call center, then the other two call centers will pick up on it simply because they have to. (We can't have 100 agents telling the customers one thing, and then 200 telling them otherwise, right?). Maybe it won't spread to other banks or Visa International, but it will work at my bank, stopping 1500-3000 chargebacks a month.

Our presentation focuses on mainly on the benefits to the bank in implementing my procedures. Stopping 3000 chargebacks a month saves $75000/month. It also saves time on the phone, allowing us to help other customers with real problems. An average chargeback call takes ~5 mins for the agent taking the call, and then at least 10-15 mins a day for 4-8 weeks for the agent in the chargeback dept assigned to the case. Saving all that time can have many benefits, including reducing wait time for real chargebacks, or even reducing the number of agents needed in the chargeback dept.

YOu are right on the savings and everything. Just my experiences with banks (I worked at one for a few years) is that anything not "morally correct" is not going anywhere with them.

Since porn is bad, I can see this plan of yours never getting off the ground. I mean, I would not be surprised to hear in a month or so that your managers have scrapped your project - even though it makes 100% sense.

You underestimate the power of one person. I used to be "a mc burger flipper" and I changed a lot in my restaurant procedure-wise. Maybe not nationwide, but it's a start, and it spreads.

Maybe Visa Int. doesn't care enough, but TD Visa does care. If you question whether or not I work there or not, I'll make the same offer I made to KimmyKim when she questioned it. Email me, I'll give you my name, the number for TD Customer Service, and the hours I work, and you can call me up at work.

I'm the agent with the highest productivity in my center, and amongst the top for quality. I've earned the respect of my co-workers and managers. And especially the director of my center. My co-worker and I have worked on this solely on our free-time and have done so unpaid. That impresses my managers and director even more.
If you doubt whether or not it'll work, let me know your websites, your processors, and if I come across someone charging back a membership to your site, I'll let you know.

gfy's resident douchebag :thumbsup

nice of you and when I am in Canada next time maybe we can meet I need to dispute a charge :-)

There's a vast difference between a bank, and a call center. We never see the customer's face, so there's a lot less worry of how he'll react. Also, if we lose the customer because of this, we don't lose much more money than if we were honour his chargeback and issue him a new card.
Another large difference has to do with age. The average age of employees at my call center is 25. My manager is 24. The majority (90% at least) have internet skills and are "morally relaxed" for lack of a better term. We have no problems asking our customers "Well sir, that's a memebership to an adult website, did you sign up for one?". We get satisfaction out of telling the cardholder "Well, if you didn't cancel before the end of the 3 day trial, the charge is valid and there's nothing we can do for you".

I xunt-cur

Hmm, sounds different.

My manager was about 60. All my co workers was at a minimum 10 years older then me - except the CSR gofers.

Your thoughts are very interesting.

I work for iBill. You can contact me at [email protected]

any manager that can reduce even * .5% * when dealing with the kind on Numbers Visa does will jump through hoops 2 do it.... if they have any dam brains at all that is. if not then they are very happy making the money they make and are not looking for advancement... in that company. :2 cents:

How many Marks are there at iBill? When we called last night, I'm pretty sure we spoke to a Mark. He was a supervisor in the Cust. Serv. dept.
Thanks for the offer, I'll definetly hit you up if I need any info/help.

Maybe I should charge webmasters for this? "Hi. Someone is attempting to chargeback a membership to your site. Send me $10 thru Paypal, and I'll stop the chargeback and save you money." :Graucho

I hope you're successful with this, it would definitely help.

Also, I was wondering, doesn't anyone you work with ever ask you how you know so much about the adult business? Do you tell them "yeah, I'm a porn monger on the side"?

By the way, when people call to dispute a charge from IBill, CCBill, etc... you don't need to say that it was a charge from them signing-up to an adult website. I would just say that it's a charge from a website subscription (and leave out the "adult" part). IBill + others don't just process for adult, it is possible that some of the sites they process for are non-adult regular websites. This would ensure that Visa doesn't have to recognize the fact that they're dealing with the adult industry, and would make it more likely that they'll listen to your idea.

Personally, I think this is a workable plan. In corporations, a lot of relatively obscure ideas are tested in small environments, such as a few call centers. The key is getting someone at VISA International to learn of the plan and then begin championing it throughout the entire VISA system. That will be the tough part.

Frankly, I'm not as convinced as some webmasters here that VISA doesn't want to stop fraudulant chargebacks. Eventually, this will become a problem for non-adult sites, too...especially as more and more sites are charging subscriptions for what is essentially intellectual property.

At some point, VISA, MC and other credit card companies are going to have to deal with the fact that some their cardholders make legitimate purchase and have figured out how to play the system so they don't have to pay for them. Just as the adult web got people used to buying online, those same scumbags who charge back fraudulantly will begin to apply that to other online purchases.

I'm not naive, and I have real world experience in business. I know that while VISA and the others may not particularly like the adult web, they also can't like the idea of their cardholders committing fraud, which they are abetting. If nothing else, their legal departments have to be at least a little concerned about that.

And if you think corporations take such strong moral stands, consider this...you wouldn't consider giant hotel chains to be porno theatres, but in just about every hotel room (in the US at least) you can view adult movies on your TV. That's starting to draw fire but they make hundreds of millions a year on that...and I doubt they will stop allowing it.

Keep at it Psyko!

Why so negative?

It sounds like a good idea to me, and if he can do it, all the better for everyone.

good on ya Psyko.

if you need my help on this email me

[email protected] :winkwink:


every little bit helps

good job

Hahaha... when asked, I say i had seen a charge from a processor, starting looking into it to find more information and then discovered this whole world of 3rd party processors.

As for your second comment, that's exactly what I do. More or less I say "If you sign up for a membership on a website, you'll be billed by this company". I avoid saying it's for porn because it's not tactful (although I've overheard other co-workers say it).

Brutalmaster... thanks for the back-up... the hotel porn analogy is pretty good come to think of it!

I think this is a great idea and Visa would be stupid not to follow through on it.

This relates to more than just porn; It carries over to almost all transactions on the Internet.

RocHard... you're right, it does apply to more than just porn...
A lot of people see a web address on their statement, and don't bother checking the site...
For example, they sign up for Real Player, see real.com on their statement and call in saying they don't know what it is... samne thing when they upgrade Norton Anti-Virus and see McAfee.com