Think I’ve been scammed

PerkyBoingo

Grumpy_chap said:

  One assumes the scammers would not try to follow non-payment claim against the chargeback transaction.

I've been caught by a similar scam. Can I clarify what you mean by this last sentence please? That the scammers are unlikely to contest any chargeback claims?

I hope this is the case as I am in a chargeback situation too. I'm thinking the scammers are working on a volume basis; i.e. that they're scamming so many people and only a fraction of those put in chargeback claims so, from the scammers point of view, they're still quids in unfortunately.

RefluentBeans

PerkyBoingo said:

Grumpy_chap said:

  One assumes the scammers would not try to follow non-payment claim against the chargeback transaction.

I've been caught by a similar scam. Can I clarify what you mean by this last sentence please? That the scammers are unlikely to contest any chargeback claims?

I hope this is the case as I am in a chargeback situation too. I'm thinking the scammers are working on a volume basis; i.e. that they're scamming so many people and only a fraction of those put in chargeback claims so, from the scammers point of view, they're still quids in unfortunately.

The chargeback process is extrajudicial meaning it isn’t legally binding. So if a retailer doesn’t respond to a chargeback, the money gets refunded to you. They can, however, appeal this in a set time frame - normally by proving proof of tracking. Because a chargeback is outside of the legal system, it doesn’t nullify the contract so the contract still exists. 

Consider s scenario where a company sends you something, and then on receipt you file a chargeback but the company fails to respond to the chargeback and so the money comes back to you (and eventually out of the retailers bank account) so they are doubly down - losing the product and losing the money. But the contract is still in tact - so it now becomes a debt that you owe the company. They can then proceed via the courts to claim this debt as the chargeback doesn’t change the contract. 

But this doesn’t matter here as they won’t be able to provide evidence of postage. And if they do eventually post something to you (normally a cheap item to just generate a tracking code) you can put in for another chargeback for the item not being what you ordered. 

Chargebacks aren’t guaranteed - but in scam situations (like you said) they work on the numbers. If 40% of people don’t do chargebacks then they get that money. If they appeal then they’re attracting more attention than if they don’t appeal and they don’t want that or they could lose access to their payment processing services. 

born_again

RefluentBeans said:

But this doesn’t matter here as they won’t be able to provide evidence of postage. And if they do eventually post something to you (normally a cheap item to just generate a tracking code) you can put in for another chargeback for the item not being what you ordered. 

You can only make one chargeback on a transaction, so if you did non receipt & they rejected on proof of delivery, then item turned up, but was not what was ordered. You have no further claim via chargeback system.
You would have to go legal

RefluentBeans

born_again said:

RefluentBeans said:

But this doesn’t matter here as they won’t be able to provide evidence of postage. And if they do eventually post something to you (normally a cheap item to just generate a tracking code) you can put in for another chargeback for the item not being what you ordered. 

You can only make one chargeback on a transaction, so if you did non receipt & they rejected on proof of delivery, then item turned up, but was not what was ordered. You have no further claim via chargeback system.
You would have to go legal

Ah I didn’t know that - still doesn’t really change much other than to hold off if there is a last minute tracking link provided to the OP. 

Going the legal route is often complex as realistically these companies won’t be based in the UK; and won’t have a registered address; thus the right would be wherever the retailer claims they’re operating from. Whilst in no doubt that there would be legalisation to stop companies from taking money and providing nothing to the consumer in most (dare I say all) jurisdictions- the actual mechanism to claim that back will vary considerably between jurisdictions. 

Grumpy_chap

PerkyBoingo said:

I've been caught by a similar scam. Can I clarify what you mean by this last sentence please? That the scammers are unlikely to contest any chargeback claims?

I hope this is the case as I am in a chargeback situation too. I'm thinking the scammers are working on a volume basis; i.e. that they're scamming so many people and only a fraction of those put in chargeback claims so, from the scammers point of view, they're still quids in unfortunately.

Will scammer contest a chargeback?

A genuine company might sell you, say, a base layer top for £40.  They have proof that the correct top was dispatched and received by the customer.  The customer tries to "pull a fast one" and makes some kind of spurious claim and submits a chargeback.  The genuine retailer might then challenge take and seek the funds again via the CC and / or take the evidence they have and start formal claim (CCJ) for the recovery of the debt.  All as it should be as the genuine company should not lose out to a consumer "pulling a fast one" and the genuine company has nothing to hide.

A scammer, on the other hand, does not want to draw attention to themselves.  So they "sell" the same base layer top at a bargain £30.  The scammer never had any tops and never sends anything.  The customer eventually submits a chargeback.  The scammer won't want to make any fuss, certainly won't pursue the customer legally and won't want to risk the customer trying to pursue them (the scammer) via any legal route (if the customer can trace the scammer).  I assume, therefore, the scammer will just accept the chargeback and keep quiet. 

This does become what you said - volume game.  The scammer gets 1,000 sales in a month at £30 for non-existent tops.  900 of those sales claim the chargeback.  The remaining 100 don't for whatever reason.  That's still £3k for nothing.
What I don't know is whether the CC companies (VISA and Mastercard) have any point at which they see the threshold for chargebacks exceed some trigger and then withdraw services.
If this happens, the scammers probably just take whatever they got to date and then restart anew.

ArbitraryRandom

Grumpy_chap said:

This does become what you said - volume game.  The scammer gets 1,000 sales in a month at £30 for non-existent tops.  900 of those sales claim the chargeback.  The remaining 100 don't for whatever reason.  That's still £3k for nothing.
What I don't know is whether the CC companies (VISA and Mastercard) have any point at which they see the threshold for chargebacks exceed some trigger and then withdraw services.
If this happens, the scammers probably just take whatever they got to date and then restart anew.

I think that's a fairly optimistic way of looking at it. 

More cynically I'd suggest these websites can be set up and taken down very quickly - so the scammer would create a site; pay for cheap ads via google/tiktok wherever; sell high volumes of non-existent stock at 'low costs'; then empty the account and disappear as soon as the chargebacks start to come in.

If the customer gets their cash back under those circumstances, it will be coming from the bank's funds... which translates to things like higher transaction fees for all merchants etc to cover losses. 

macgyver

Sadly same thing happened to me as I have posted in my thread mentioned in previous past. Waiting for 30 days to initiate the charge back from my credit card. 
Good luck to you as well daisymeg for the chargeback

Grumpy_chap

ArbitraryRandom said:

Grumpy_chap said:

This does become what you said - volume game.  The scammer gets 1,000 sales in a month at £30 for non-existent tops.  900 of those sales claim the chargeback.  The remaining 100 don't for whatever reason.  That's still £3k for nothing.
What I don't know is whether the CC companies (VISA and Mastercard) have any point at which they see the threshold for chargebacks exceed some trigger and then withdraw services.
If this happens, the scammers probably just take whatever they got to date and then restart anew.

I think that's a fairly optimistic way of looking at it. 

More cynically I'd suggest these websites can be set up and taken down very quickly - so the scammer would create a site; pay for cheap ads via google/tiktok wherever; sell high volumes of non-existent stock at 'low costs'; then empty the account and disappear as soon as the chargebacks start to come in.

If the customer gets their cash back under those circumstances, it will be coming from the bank's funds... which translates to things like higher transaction fees for all merchants etc to cover losses. 

Well, yes, that would be even better for the scammers.  Sell 1,000 non-existent £40 tops for the bargain price of £30 so that is £30k.  As soon as the first couple of charge backs land, make haste with the whole £30k less the small amount that was clawed back before you did the runner...

born_again

Grumpy_chap said:

What I don't know is whether the CC companies (VISA and Mastercard) have any point at which they see the threshold for chargebacks exceed some trigger and then withdraw services.
If this happens, the scammers probably just take whatever they got to date and then restart anew.

Visa/Mastercard certainly do have a naughty list of retailer & in such cases, retailers does not get the right to contest any chargeback.
Only retailer merchant bank can withdraw their facility. Too many chargebacks, will see this happen. As it increases workload for them.

But many of these co's use one of the many Chinese payment companies, so just move onto the next one when they get ousted. Or just shut up shop & start again under a new name.

nats1987

I got scammed by this company over christmas. They had a fb link to the perfume shop with seriously cheap deals which my mum accepted i noticed straight away n reported it same night. My card company took it on and the company refunded me within a week. I got a cheap ring delivered instead of perfume