How to Charge £200 without loosing it?

[bazza1603]

Hi,

I am looking at trialling a small business venture. I would be renting a bit of equipment worth between £100 and £225 out for a small fee of about £4 a day.

As I would be dealing with people on the internet, I would want to precharge there credit card up front for the full value of the equipment. When they return the equipment I would then refund the money minus the rental charge.

Does anyone know of any companies that would allow me to charge people credit cards without the risk of chargebacks. I would hate to be out of pocket and loose the equipment.

Any Ideas?

Best Regards

Barry

[futureweb]

In a word No

Scary thing chargebacks the credit card issuer requests it and its pretty much game over. You must ensure you have signed recipt of goods delivered if you are dealing with downloadable digital goods in my experience your doomed the only way around it is to send a paper leicense via special delivery or other signed for postage to prove recipt of goods. Paypal are renowed for chargebacks months after the transaction.

i think worldpay and protex are pretty good the later being my choice for both price and service. But you have to wait longer for your money.

[gareth]

My personal choice is SECPay - as long as you perform a full address and CVC check (and it all matches), it's pretty difficult for the bank to do a charge back as you have evidence that the user of the card had the actual card (CVC number), and knew the address of the card holder. I've been able to successful reject chargebacks using this info before.

Also, doing a few basic checks like comparing the customers IP against the country they claim to be from can help.

[matbennett]

My experience is different from Gareth's and is really that if the customer is adamant enough they will get the chargeback - as it is the credit card issuer who makes the final decision and it is their customer making the complaint.

Worst case I have seen is where all details, including CVV were provided correctly, goods were shipped to the billing address and a signature was obtained upon delivery. This signature also matched one on a fax referring to the order. Several weeks after delivery the customer claimed non-receipt and got the funds charged back despite this proof.

Needless to say we don't accept that particular brand of card any more and I am personally happy to always leave home without it.

[qwerky]

I think NoChex do not allow chargebacks, i use them for website listings and never had any problems.

[Barry]

You could ask them to send a postal order or maybe cash on delivery?

It a long process to wait for them to post it though - and would put many people off.

In the long run - most people are not out to rip you off, its a bit like theft from a real store - you will have to work it out and see how much loss or leakage your process has and use experience to cover those costs in your prices.

Maybe you could insure you hardware?

I think that it is about time that card issuers took some of the slack for chargeback situations.

[eliteshops]

Originally Posted by futureweb In a word No i think worldpay and protex are pretty good the later being my choice for both price and service. But you have to wait longer for your money.

I agree

Protx is superb.. just wish they had an affiliation programme as most our sites and advice leads to Protx

[matbennett]

Protx is superb.. just wish they had an affiliation programme

They do. Only pays about £2 a month for the first 12 months though. Think that you have to mail them about it.

[Brains]

I wouldn't worry too much. Most people are pretty honest. I worried about chargebacks when I started out since I provide a service rather than goods. I can count the number of chargebacks this year on one hand with 1000's of transactions.

In terms of loss of equipment. Just do the usual CC checks. You could always follow up with a copy of their bills/passport or something like that - I've had to do this in the past.

BRAINS

[altyfc]

I only take CC payments for small sums. Usually around £50 and below. For larger sums, I insist on bank transfer.

Aaron