When The Chargeback Comes Back To Bite You

A woman bought a designer handbag from me on a buy/sell website. Then, about a week later, she sent an extremely rude message claiming the handbag was damaged and smelled funny. She wanted her money back IMMEDIATELY, and she demanded that I send it to her on Venmo. (This is against [Website] policy and is a massive red flag for fraud.) She said if I didn’t, she would file a chargeback. (Threatening sellers with chargebacks is also against [Website] policy).

As it was the weekend, and the woman’s language was really abusive and gross, I decided not to interrupt my weekend and waited until Monday morning to respond, which is within [Website]’s Terms Of Service.

The woman was really aggressive, and she sent me more rude messages demanding I relent and pay her off-site “or else”. I checked her feedback, and at least one other seller reported that she had also tried to coerce them into an off-site refund with a chargeback.

Buyers have enormous latitude in online sales, and to be honest, I just didn’t want to deal with her anymore, so on Monday, I responded offering her a full refund in exchange for a free return, and though I did not believe she was being honest, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and said that maybe the handbag was damaged in transit.

I fully expected her to return the wrong item, but after I gave her the free return and refund option, she filed a chargeback anyway, claiming the item was not as described. Then, she left very negative feedback.

Both the feedback and the existence of a chargeback claim harm my presence on [Website]. That also hit me with fees and an automatic refund for her, taking money out of my account automatically and messing with my budget. There’s a reason why most sellers will do almost anything to avoid chargebacks; it really is inconvenient and damaging for us.

As this used to be my profession, I know that it’s considered fraudulent to file a chargeback when the retailer has offered a full refund. So, naturally, I appealed the case with [Website], and it was decided in my favor, and her refund was reversed. I blocked her and moved along.

Fast forward about two weeks. The handbag showed up on my doorstep, returned, and without any of the damages that the woman had complained about.

I realized that, in this situation, I had no legal obligation to refund the woman at all, but better still is that when I went to the seller dashboard to try, I didn’t even have the option to refund her because the case she had opened was closed and decided in my favor. I still felt a little funny about relisting the handbag, so I emailed the site for more direction.

Apparently, when you file a chargeback, you are forfeiting your right to seek a refund directly from the retailer in favor of seeking a refund from your financial institution. The woman apparently messaged the site and modified my feedback to demand a refund after the chargeback failed, and she sent them the tracking number of the item she ultimately returned, saying that since she had a tracking number, they had to refund her. But a failed chargeback is final in this case, and because her behavior was deemed fraudulent, [Website] itself was not able or willing to refund her anymore, either.

The only way I could give her money back was if I unblocked her, exchanged information, and sent the refund on Venmo or Paypal, which are linked to my personal email and phone number. Given how rude she had been, I had no interest in opening up any unmediated communication, and I was certainly not going to give her personal contacts of any kind.

So, by following through on her coercive threat to file a chargeback against me, she managed to lose both the item and her money. A chargeback is not the silver bullet people often think it is. If she’d been even reasonably polite, I’d have had no issue communicating with her directly to give her money back, even if she had filed the chargeback.