The Billpoint Charge Back Nightmare
Written: May 05 '01 (Updated Jul 12 '01)
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Pros: free for buyer, allows acceptance of credit cards
Cons: open to fraud
The Bottom Line: If you like or can afford charge back's, Billpoint might work for you.
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| vein's Full Review: BillPoint |
I admit it - I once used and even liked eBay's Billpoint service. Billpoint allowed for the quick use of major credit cards (Mastercard, Visa, Discover) as well as using a checking account to purchase items. While the service was free to the buyer, the seller was charged a small fee per transaction. The fee, in my mind, was worth instant payments, deposits made to my checking account within a week, and their decent customer service.
The past few weeks, however, have managed to change my opinion of Billpoint.
When I went through the process of selecting online payment services, I emailed several, asking their policies on security and charge backs, as well as general fraudulent buyers. Paypal, the most popular online payment service, had what I believe were major security holes, not to mention poor customer service. Therefore, thanks in part to the quick and polite response to my questions, Billpoint became the only online payment service I accepted.
Little did I know, at the time, polite and quick responses do not equal truthful responses.
For many months I used Billpoint with no problems. I was paid quickly by buyers, charged the correct fee, and my payments were always fairly promptly deposited into my checking account.
With Billpoint’s growing popularity, however, customer service often could not keep up. Many times international buyers were unable to complete transactions, with Billpoint customer service failing to respond for days at a time. When Billpoint customer service did respond, the common answer was that it was a website coding problem, and was being worked on.
Mistakes happen, I do understand. The lack of being able to keep backups to previous fully functional versions, however, I did not understand.
My high opinion of Billpoint began to fade in March, however.
I'd written to customer service about the "trouble" a bidder was having on making payment. They claimed to have attempted to make payment, but, because this person was clearly dragging their feet, I did believe it was a simple non-paying bidder, looking for an excuse not to pay. In my question to Billpoint, I asked them to look to see if they had actually attempted to make payment, or, if my non-paying bidder suspicion was correct.
Common customer service etiquette would state that you respond to the original author of the post, and only to that author. Common sense would state you do not forward the answer (especially when it was of help to the seller only, not the bidder) to both the sender of the original email and the person the question dealt with. However, in this case, without so much as asking me or stating beforehand that my original email would be forwarded to the buyer, the customer service rep who "answered" my question forwarded his answer as well as my original question to myself and the buyer.
Why, yes, someone will be more likely to jump through Billpoint hoops when the seller accuses them of being a possible non-paying bidder.
I wrote a complain letter to Billpoint, who sent me a form letter back, stating the email would be replied to within 24 hours. Surprise! Never heard another word.
Due to consistent Billpoint outages and problems, Billpoint payments slowed down over the next month, but I did still accept them.
That is, I accepted them until I found out the dirty truth behind Billpoint's security. Or rather, lack thereof.
On the 23rd of April, I received a letter from Billpoint, stating that a charge back had been initiated from an eBay purchase made in early January. No problem, I thought, as I had proof of mailing as well as proof of delivery to the buyers address, provided by Billpoint. The buyer had also left positive feedback on my account.
At that time, I did write off to Billpoint, asking for clarification of the reason given for the charge back - Billpoint has a fondness for using "codes" that are not listed on their website. I also caught something odd, that looked like a clear case of fraud the more I looked into the situation.
In January, when the purchase had been made, the buyers name (given by Billpoint, which was supposedly the register card holders information) was a female name. On this charge back notice, the name given was an Asian male's name. Interesting, I thought - Billpoint allows the user of one account to change names and sexes?
When I received a letter back from Billpoint customer "care" workers about 72 hours after my original email, I became absolutely livid. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I should not waste my time faxing them proof of shipment and receipt, as my "proof" would be denied. I was also told, in this email, that the original amount paid, plus the $10 "charge back fee" would be taken out of my account immediately, not even giving me time to fax in my information!
Billpoint, who had seemed to answer all of my original questions correctly, had lied.
I was originally told that yes, a buyers information was the registered billing address on the credit card. This alone would prevent 99.5% of all charge backs, as the seller would have proof that the item was sent to the real buyer, not just someone using another persons credit card. According to the new answer by Billpoint, the buyer information could be anything under the sun, and had nothing to do with the billing address. To add further insult to injury, Billpoint refused to give out any billing information, in order for fraud charges to looked into.
Billpoint, in addition, stated that all charge backs, no matter what the reasoning, would be studied and, only if the seller could not prove that the package was sent to the given address, would a charge back be granted. Apparently this policy changed as well, as I had all of the proof in the world that the package was sent and delivered; yet that was not good enough for Billpoint.
The most disturbing trend of all was discovered when several sellers of the same buyer got together and learned we'd all been victims of fraud. This "buyer" had changed their buyer information no less than 5 times, all on the same Billpoint account. No red flags were raised by Billpoint to look into a user who apparently changed from male to female and back several times, all while having items sent to the same post office box. Different credit card issuers and numbers is one thing, however, changing full billing names and phone numbers should have raised some sort of fraud alarm with Billpoint.
In speaking with other sellers who had been victimized by this fraud, we also found it interesting that, despite the fact that the first charge backs first started in early February, in March, this person, after requesting over 10 charge backs, was still allowed to make purchases using Billpoint, which, I'm sure, will ultimately be charged back.
Billpoint will no longer answer any questions related to this charge back, to either myself or any other seller that had the unfortunate experience of selling to the same person. At Billpoint's $10 profit on each charge back, it's not a financially wise option to allow us to contest the charge backs, I'm sure.
Yes, allowing purchasers to use a credit card for payment does open up a door for fraud; however, simple steps can be taken to prevent such cases. Simple steps that ultimately, Billpoint did not take and did lie about having taken in the first place.
Despite having sung praise for Billpoint in the past, I can no longer recommend a system that doesn't have simple fraud reducing procedures in place, including the ability for sellers to ship only to the authorized billing address. As a small time eBay seller, I just can't take the risk that I'll be subjected to more fraud, much to my dismay, as well as to the dismay of buyers who want simple and convenient payment options.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
vein
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Member: Courtney
Location: Detroit, MI
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 77 members
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