Whats happening fellas. The reason for this post is I would like to essentially vent my frustrations and hopefully give others like me some insight into this particular situation so this does not happen to them.
About me: I'm 22 years old and a full time college student about to finish my 4 year in business and hopefully continue to grad school in hopes of getting my MBA. Two years ago when I moved out from home started my first website selling home theater electronics - specifically home theater projectors. The biz is grossed me 15k in 2010 and 2011 which is chump change, but was giving me some income allow me to venture and learn the ways of affiliate marketing.
My first year in business brought me several charge backs from fraudsters using other peoples cards with differing billing and shipping addresses. I never called or tried to verify that the owner of the card in fact placed that order. So i got burned, and I learned. I changed my policy to only ship to a verified billing address that is tied to the card after speaking with the owner on the phone and/or having them fax me an ID.
A year later...
I received two of my largest orders to date. I immediately picked up the phone called the owner, and had them fax me a copy of their drivers licence. I got the license (btw these guys who just burned me are from canada), it looked legit against other canadian IDs that I googled - and the Billing address tied to the card that was used for the transaction matched the shipping, and my credit card processor gave me an Explicit match match match on all of the verifications on their side. So everything looked good. Everything matched, Billing address tied to the card and the persons photo ID with that address on it. I felt that there was no way this could be fraud.
I proceeded to send out the products. Here is where the real nightmare begins.
Weeks later I get the first charge back which completely cleared out my account. I wondered what the hell was going on, apparently the first card was stolen. I checked my tracking number on my products. DHL in canada tried to deliver the package, but re-routed it back to the DHL headquarters in the region because "they could not find the address", and the fraudster came in a WEEK after DHL sat on it and signed for the products under the fake name and took them off of DHLs hands.
This then prompted me to check the other packages for the other big order. The EXACT same thing happened, fraudster saw the attempted delivery to the address tied to the credit card, went down to DHL signed and left with my product.
After calling DHL they could not give me a reason as to why the products weren't RE ROUTED back to me after the failed attempted to a non existent address, again that was tied to a verified billing address with the credit card.
Long story short I am hit back with $4000 in charge backs. the First wiped out the retained earnings I had, and then the other that just came through today has my account negative. So i spent my days filing chargeback disputes (I lost both), and today I have been in and out of banks applying for lines of credit to try and zero out the account.
Hopefully I will figure out a way to land on my feet, but this situation is mind boggling to me. How far these fraudsters went, and furthermore how a credit card billing address can be changed on the banks side to a fake address, and that my processor explicitly gave me a match on address and every other detail about the card.
I hope this little story can enlighten those who are selling online so that they can avoid what has happened to me. Then again... how the hell was I supposed to know, I followed the rules to a T and still got burned. The fraudster gets the product and the owner of the card get their money back, and Im left here with my head spinning and my thumb in my ass with all of my money gone.
Thank you for reading.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.
About me: I'm 22 years old and a full time college student about to finish my 4 year in business and hopefully continue to grad school in hopes of getting my MBA. Two years ago when I moved out from home started my first website selling home theater electronics - specifically home theater projectors. The biz is grossed me 15k in 2010 and 2011 which is chump change, but was giving me some income allow me to venture and learn the ways of affiliate marketing.
My first year in business brought me several charge backs from fraudsters using other peoples cards with differing billing and shipping addresses. I never called or tried to verify that the owner of the card in fact placed that order. So i got burned, and I learned. I changed my policy to only ship to a verified billing address that is tied to the card after speaking with the owner on the phone and/or having them fax me an ID.
A year later...
I received two of my largest orders to date. I immediately picked up the phone called the owner, and had them fax me a copy of their drivers licence. I got the license (btw these guys who just burned me are from canada), it looked legit against other canadian IDs that I googled - and the Billing address tied to the card that was used for the transaction matched the shipping, and my credit card processor gave me an Explicit match match match on all of the verifications on their side. So everything looked good. Everything matched, Billing address tied to the card and the persons photo ID with that address on it. I felt that there was no way this could be fraud.
I proceeded to send out the products. Here is where the real nightmare begins.
Weeks later I get the first charge back which completely cleared out my account. I wondered what the hell was going on, apparently the first card was stolen. I checked my tracking number on my products. DHL in canada tried to deliver the package, but re-routed it back to the DHL headquarters in the region because "they could not find the address", and the fraudster came in a WEEK after DHL sat on it and signed for the products under the fake name and took them off of DHLs hands.
This then prompted me to check the other packages for the other big order. The EXACT same thing happened, fraudster saw the attempted delivery to the address tied to the credit card, went down to DHL signed and left with my product.
After calling DHL they could not give me a reason as to why the products weren't RE ROUTED back to me after the failed attempted to a non existent address, again that was tied to a verified billing address with the credit card.
Long story short I am hit back with $4000 in charge backs. the First wiped out the retained earnings I had, and then the other that just came through today has my account negative. So i spent my days filing chargeback disputes (I lost both), and today I have been in and out of banks applying for lines of credit to try and zero out the account.
Hopefully I will figure out a way to land on my feet, but this situation is mind boggling to me. How far these fraudsters went, and furthermore how a credit card billing address can be changed on the banks side to a fake address, and that my processor explicitly gave me a match on address and every other detail about the card.
I hope this little story can enlighten those who are selling online so that they can avoid what has happened to me. Then again... how the hell was I supposed to know, I followed the rules to a T and still got burned. The fraudster gets the product and the owner of the card get their money back, and Im left here with my head spinning and my thumb in my ass with all of my money gone.
Thank you for reading.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Last edited:
