credit card question

[~bs]

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Question: have you ever filed a credit card chargeback before for a reason other than a charge you have not initiated?

As a sidenote, I don't think you even understand what a chargeback is (I don't mean to jump you for it). A chargeback is an adverse action initiated against a merchant by the customer. Not a refund posted back to a credit card as you're describing above.

[neatdesign]

The only way the credit card company will honor a chargeback is if the vendor gives the money back to the credit card company. They will then chargeback your account with that same amount (essentially making it as if the transaction never occurred). The vendor first needs to authorize a refund, refund the credit card company, then the credit card company applies the chargeback on your account. Ultimately, it is the vendor that you have to deal with.

This is incorrect. A chargeback is NOT a refund authorized by the vendor which the credit card honors by applying as a credit to the account. If the vendor granted the customer's request for a refund, then the the customer would have no reason to dispute the charge with the credit card company, and the credit card has no reason to process a chargeback in the first place.

This webpage explains chargebacks in more detail -- specifically this part:

What is a charge-back?
A charge-back, in essence, reverses a credit card sales transaction. The Visa merchant agreement defines it as "a transaction that a card issuer returns to a merchant bank as a financial liability and which, in turn, a merchant bank may return to a merchant." Got it? The debt for the purchased item gets pushed back up the line: from you, to your card issuer, to the merchant's bank and back to the merchant, all through the transaction processor's network. It removes a charge from a cardholder's bill and -- through the middlemen -- "charges back" the amount to the merchant. (See "How credit card transactions work.")

It's a big stick for the consumer. With a charge-back, the merchant loses a sale and eats the costs of processing the charge-back. In addition, a merchant who has too many charge-backs faces additional charges from card processing companies.

If I am wrong, please provide real factual backup because this is how I understand things.

Here are several U.S. government websites that address debit card vs credit card consumer protections:

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnfall09/debit_vs_credit.html

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnsum12/paymentcards.html

http://www.usa.gov/topics/money/banking/atm-debit.shtml -- scroll to the bottom to read the "Before You Swipe Your Debit Card" section

http://www.in.gov/dfi/2553.htm -- see the last paragraph in the "Higher Fees?" section

[dczech09]

Ok, so we had a mix up of terms then. I thought you were talking about a scenario when you are simply asking a refund for whatever reason- not an issue of liability of the vendor.

And for the record, I have never filed a chargeback, thus I was just assuming that you were talking about a simple refund (not an actual liability). Sorry for the confusion