American Express Merchant Services Destroying small business in the US and aiding and abetting credit card Fraud El Paso, Tennessee
I am a Merchant operating an online computer store. Lately I have (in the past 2 weeks) received multiple chargebacks from American Express stating their customers did not order anything and yet I have sent expensive equipment to the addresses that American Express verified through Authorize.net payment gateway and Chase Paymentech/Merchant Focus. I have everything setup to deny if anything does not match due to the amount of fraud. But now I have The banks going oh it's fine ship the product the address is matching so that is our customer!
When I respond to the chargeback inquiry I get a completely different response. At that point they are stating that the information does not match their customer. So now I shipped products based on american express VERIFYING the information and then taking thousands of dollars from me after I send products out.
American Express/Authorize.net/Merchant Focus/Chase Paymentech are all blaming each other saying they aren't the ones verifying the address and that one of the others is. Who else here has been in this situation with them aiding and abetting credit card fraud and putting you out of business?
If any attorneys and or media are reading this I would appreciate help in starting a class action lawsuit against these companies as I am sure have robbed thousands of merchants and not just myself.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
John000
Rocklin,California,
USA
Gamble dealing with Amex
#3Author of original report
Wed, December 14, 2011
Yes it is a gamble when the banks VERIFY the address is the correct address and then later say the information is incorrect. Starting business in brick and mortar has 1000x the cost of starting online and if the banks simply respond with the correct address verification response (something that the merchant pays extra to have) it would stop things like this. The bank server responds with yes that is our customers address then real customer calls in and disputes then bank looks and says oh well we don't know who verified that address but it doesn't match. Amex is doing this and their servers are saying everything is a match then you send expensive products to address that was verified by address and get robbed for the money and product.
coast
USAIt's a gamble
#3Consumer Comment
Tue, December 13, 2011
It's a gamble when a merchant accepts credit card payments without signature verification. You made that choice when you started accepting credit card payments online. You have no chance of winning a lawsuit without a matching signature.
The possibility exists that the charges may not have been authorized by the cardholder.