The Credit Card Stop-Pay Option

In our day, we mailed the envelope but forgot to close the envelope (and include the check).

You certainly do put your pump down!

Are you the guy whose husband is going to spank him?

I use the 'dispute' option whenever necessary. I agree with OP -- let the company do the work.

There's no such thing as a "stop pay" option on credit cards. The whole point of a credit card is that the merchant gets your money (from the card issuer) right away. The only recourse you have is to file a dispute -- but that doesn't stop the merchant from getting paid.

R5, um, yes it does. The dispute holds payment until the matter is resolved, which involves the merchant giving his side. Usually the merchant capitulates and does why he should have in the first place.

In actuality, while the payment was likely already made by the credit card company, banking is so fluid now that the card can recall it and hold it.

OP, I bet you’re a Karen.

Completely

r6 And how is that different from what I said? It's not a STOP PAYMENT because the payment has already been made. Stop payments are for CHECKS which have not been processed yet.

R9, semantics

R10, accuracy.

(r6), um, actually no. When a customer places a dispute on a credit card charge, the merchant already has the money. Filing a dispute removes the liability from the card holder on the account until the issue is resolved between the merchant and the credit card company. The merchant usually has between five to seven days to respond to the chargeback sent to the merchant on behalf of the card holder. If the merchant fails to respond to the chargeback notice, the liability is removed and the card holder remains uncharged. Usually when a merchant receives a chargeback notice they will reach out to the customer to resolve the issue, but if the merchant has already dealt with the cardholder and has not been able to resolve the issue, the merchant may appeal directly to the card issuer to state a case as to why the card holder should be charged - especially when a signature has been obtained from the card holder and the merchandise has been already received. The card issuer is the arbiter and they will decide whether the card holder is stuck with the liability or the money gets returned. In most cases, the merchant defaults on responding to the chargeback notice and the customer receives a credit and the merchant gets dinged.

R12, you basically said what I said— just with more detail

R12, in your words... um, actually no. The merchant is dinged upon the customer's chargeback filing plus whatever processing fees the card issuer/issuing bank charges (starting at about $25). The merchant then has to go through to process of disputing the chargeback in order to have the funds returned (less the chargeback processing fees). The process is quite onerous for the merchant and unless the charge is for a significant amount, most choose not to dispute the chargeback and attribute it to a cost of doing business. Even with all of the documentation you specify, the card issuing bank is likely to side with the customer regardless. And why wouldn't they? The bank comes off like they're protecting the customer and not only doesn't lose a penny, but actually makes money on the chargeback.

I dealt with chargebacks on a website I owned in the 'Aughts and it was a pain. It was rarely an instance where the customer contacted me with a problem (mostly because I resolved such problems well before it would devolve into a chargeback). The most common chargebacks were just plain old fraud, and those were pointless to fight. Others were the customer just assuming I wouldn't work with them and ran to their bank before giving me a chance to solve the problem.

My policy was to mark whatever account that resulted in a chargeback as blocked and refused to serve them again. In the cases of fraud it made no difference; I was unlikely to ever hear from them again. I had several instances in which I had the pleasure of telling a bitch that I wouldn't take their order because they'd run a chargeback on their previous order, and unless they wanted to send payment for the charged-back order and whatever they wanted to then buy (via money order because I'm not stupid) they'd have to find someplace else to buy. Of course, it helped that what I was selling was unique and not available anywhere else.

[quote]Of course, it helped that what I was selling was unique and not available anywhere else.

Your mussy is hardly "unique."

You are so clever, R15.

I don't think you can stop payment on a credit card transaction.

A few years ago, eBay had a huge security break. My eBay account, PayPal, and credit card were all compromised.

I went online (credit card account) and saw six, unauthorized, "pending" transactions. (Three Samsung tablets, three iPads - about $3,000, total)

I called my credit card company and they said that it was too late to stop the money from transferring, even for the "pending" transactions.

Prologue: I didn't have to pay for those tablets / iPads.

The dispute or "chargeback" process for credit or charge cards, but not debit cards, is a "process" driven activity where each side has a set amount of time to respond with the appropriate paperwork. If one side fails to meet those deadlines, the charge either stands or is removed.

The consumer has his bank "the issuer" and the merchant his his bank "merchant acquirer" dealing with the chargeback. A merchant who has frequent chargebacks are usually deemed higher risk, so their transaction processing fees are higher - not all merchants even within the same merchant category, are charged the same amount per card transaction. There are also different levels of "holdbacks" (amounts not credited to the merchant from the acquirer) for a set period of time.

While transaction processing is a fee for service for merchants, an acquirer would be on the hook if the merchant ends up defaulting somehow on transactions. Technically, the acquirer needs to get the money back from the merchant, not the issuer.

r10, r11 is completely correct.

You're wrong.

People don't dispute charges often because the credit card company will look into it and will not always decide in your favor.

One of my best friends worked in credit card disputes for years at BoA before leaving that department in 2020.

When I owned my gift store, and sold 'Beanie Babies' back in the late 90s, I used her help quite often. Why ? Because customers I never saw before who collected BBs would come to my store and charge hundreds of dollars on their credit card to purchase ' the new releases'. Hundreds of dollars. Once their bill came in, they had no idea what my store was and why they had a charge on their card of $500 - $1000. So they would dispute it with their CC bank.

The CC bank would take the money out of my account and freeze it - I would have to provide a copy of their CC receipt with this signature on it and a letter (pre-printed - I had a stack of them) explaining said purchase was for 'Beanie Babies'. (back in the day when things were faxed over!) They would always rule in my favor, but charge me a 5% "investigation fee". There was a loophole in this - and this is where my friend's help came in . Not many merchants knew that there was some form that a merchant could fill out at the time, disputing the fee and asking the CC to charge their customer for the fee instead, since I won. (She would coach me on how to fill out the form and word it correctly). 100% of the time, I won my 'investigation fee' back.

BTW, these customers would call all the retail gift stores in one neighborhood (stores they never knew existed) by looking them up in the Yellow Pages. They would 'map their strategy' and hit every store in the neighborhood, covering about a radius of five miles, and charge up a storm on BBs. Then they would dispute every charge, saying they never visited these stores.

It's funny what gays will argue about on message boards.

R17 That's not a prologue. That's a summary.

A prologue comes before the introduction of a story, and serves as a framing device. A similar mechanism after the end of a story can be called an epilogue, or a post script.

[Quote] People don't dispute charges often because the credit card company will look into it and will not always decide in your favor.

No, people don’t do it often because they don’t realize it’s an avenue to use.

R22, I meant prologue.

Whenever I've disputed a charge, I've always won. The last dispute involved an internet purchase that never shipped. The seller didn't even allege that it did ship my order, to my knowledge. I looked at the BBB websites and saw a couple of complaints. I wish I had looked at the BBB website before ordering.

Still was a hassle, though.

The Better Business Bureau is just Yelp for old people. They're not a government entity.

They actually extort businesses with a model of "Pay us to bury bad reviews, or don't pay us and we'll post your worst reviews on top!"

As opposed to Yelp? Yelp just places bad reviews at the top regardless and refuses to remove them even when you have concrete proof that the negative review was posted in error (as in the customer who posted it writes Yelp telling them they confused the names of the merchants and, for example, meant to post the glowing review to store A but instead posted it in error to horrible Store 8 while they meant to post the reviews in reverse of that; nope, Yelp will not correct the error and I know this after arguing with them for over a year and eventually brought in an attorney to force them to remove the negative review).

Google the stories of merchants finally giving up fighting with Yelp over their inadequate policy and just going out there and asking people to give them negative reviews to fuck with Yelp's algorithm. I particularly enjoyed the sign I saw in a bar advertising "try the drink that one guy on Yelp with no other reviews said was "the worst drink he'd ever tasted"!."

I used it last month when an online Ticketmaster purchase went through incorrectly and the company told me that I was out of luck. I was very thankful to have the option.