This to enlighten who that think they are getting back at credit card companies, when in reality they are hurting local businesses. The media blitz is always on the consumer. How credit card fraud effects the seller is never the focus. Due to these inadequacies, those of us running businesses are fed up. We are tired of only hearing how the consumer is effected. What about the many legitimate businesses that are getting ripped off by consumers. No one addresses all the moneys we lose when customers commit fraud. We are charged fees when someone orders something and when they return it. We lose out when a customer falsely claims he never received an item.
All the news items you see in print or on television are about consumers. No one talks about the hit the seller takes when the consumer returns the product, or claims they never received something and they did, they just don’t want to pay for it.
To give you some insight on how the process works; when a business takes credit cards, they pay for that privilege. The credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) charge us a fee for taking their cards. Then the company we have our account with charges us for this privilege. When a customer uses a card card, we have to wait for the money to be transferred to our account. This can take anywhere from 2-8 days. Meanwhile, the customer has the product. When a customer returns a product, we are charged again by the credit card company and the company we have our account with. If a customer claims they didn’t receive the product when they did and dispute the charge, again we are charged a fee and we lose the money we paid for the product.
Now, I am not saying if a product is inferior or not as advertised you should not return it. That is not the point of this article. It is about customers who victimize businesses.
Too many consumers think it is great fun to order products, and then ask for a refund. Many people do this around New Year’s to clothing stores. They buy it, wear it and then return it. My opinion, but I think this is downright criminal. This is only one example of where this happens, there are many others. Too bad, we couldn’t all be like the bookstores, you buy it, you keep it. Another thing that consumers do, is say they never received the item when they did. Again, the business loses.
A practice that is becoming very prevalent with on-line e-products is to go on line, order it, copy it, and then decide that they “don’t like it”, “it’s not what they thought”, you name it, they have an excuse.
I think that all of these people should have to run a business of their own with a merchant account, and then see how they like it done to them.
Newsflash, Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, you are hurting your local businesses, not the credit card companies. These people are your neighbors, in some cases your friends. Although, with friends like you, who needs enemies.
So, while yes there are businesses that are ripping off the CONSUMER, it’s the BUSINESS PERSON who is getting ripped off also!
Hopefully, this article will enlighten those of you that think it’s just the credit card companies losing out. It’s not, it’s the businesses you use that are, your friends, your neighbors, your local economy!
Copyright 2004 DeFiore Enterprises
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