Comment by gxs

> Those don’t happen just willy nilly - it means your credit card reviewed your dispute and you won

Here's how that review works at the online seller of downloadable software accompanied by an online service that I do some work for.

1. A customer asks for a chargeback.

2. Their card company notifies us and asks for proof the charge is legitimate (e.g. made by the customer and what they ordered was delivered). For proof the charge was made by the customer the card company wants us to fax them a copy of the receipt that the customer signed, which of course does not exist. We also can't really prove delivery--I've yet to see a credit card company that will accept download logs showing that someone later downloaded the software from the same IP address that the order was placed from. Since we can't really dispute the chargeback it is approved.

Even when it should be obvious from the credit card company's own records that the charge is legit they want to see that signed receipt. E.g., if the customer bought a monthly subscription 2 years ago and we've been successfully charging them every month since then, and now they suddenly ask for a chargeback on their most recent charge claiming they don't recognize the charge and have never heard of is or bought any service from us the credit card company doesn't consider all those past undisputed charges as relevant.

That's not quite willy nilly but it is leaning that way for things that are entirely online.

They should obviously not be able to do that, I hope you now will stop relying on such services that put you utterly at their mercy. I hope you also tell everyone you know to not fall in the same trap