Credit Card Charge Backs and Paypal Disputes

[tasng4]

Hi,

Can anyone help. I know French CC's are not the same as UK ones (more debit than credit cards) but I'm wondering if the same rules apply regarding charge backs. I.E. If I buy goods or services which aren't satisfactory how/can I charge the transaction back to the retailer? Similarly does French Paypal have the same dispute rules as the UK?

At the moment we still use an English CC for purchases which we feel could result in a charge back (from U.S. or China) as we know the UK rules.

[johnnyboy]

We have a Nationwide CC for our purchases over here, plus a mastercard for when we are in UK. We both also have UK bank accounts with debit cards. Luckily for me that we do, I had ordered some stuff online from a dealer in UK and 3 months later, still had not received it even after phoning more than 15 times! Upshot was that I could claim the money back from my bank debit card that I made the purchase with and they then go after the dealer I guess.

Works for us, but maybe not for everyone as we all have different financial needs.

We do have a french bank account for our requirements here and simply transfer money as and when.

Johnnyboy.

[tasng4]

Johnnyboy,

That's exactly what we do except we use HSBC as we used to work for them and the took over CCF so we get free transfers between £'s and €'s. However, if we use the HSBC CC we are charged a conversion fee. I would like to use our Credit Agricole account for 'iffy' purchases in France though.

[EuroTrash]

http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F31324.xhtml

not quite the same as in the UK

[tasng4]

Thanks for the link, it helped a lot. I think overall we may be better using our UK card for international purchases and our French CC for French purchases

Thanks to all those you comented.

[Chancer]

I have experienced both extremes in each country, when Speedferries went belly up I tried to do a Visa chargeback through Nationwide, I had used say 4 out of 10 tickets, initially I was getting nowhere, the people on the phone said there was nothing I could do, then I found the right info to quote (chargeback was little known then) and got put through to the right department and it was actioned eagerly without any resistance, the money was in my account the netx day. An English guy who had purchased with his French bank card was just given the typical bums rush and despite him having all the right info they just told him to stuff it [:(]

Fast forward to this year and Myferrylink backcharged me €38 on my CA debit card and £30 on my Santander one for using €21 24 hour return tickets as single crossings something I have done for 10 years with all the operators without penalty. OK its in their T&C's but I wasnt sure about them debitting my card without my autorisation so I opposed it with both of the banks.

Santander were worse than useless, branch staff fine but the fraud department were awfull, basically buy anything on line, type in your card détails and the merchant can take whatever amount he wants after that transaction and they dont want to know, I reckon I might have succeeded going direct to Visa but let it drop I had after all saved hundreds if not more than a thousand over the years.

With CA I didnt expect anything, usual stuff, write us a letter making opposition etc, I persuaded the girl in the branch to write it for me and I just signed it, to my great surprise the money was re-creditted the very next day [8-)]

There is a difference in France in that my initial purchase had been authorised using the text mesage code and their sunsequent withdrawal hadnt. But then I had also used a verified by visa password for the Santander purchase.

[tasng4]

I ought to say I used to work in IT in a major high street bank and, on their system at least, there is/was a field in the system called the CNP (card holder not present) field. This was always set to 100%. What it meant was that if the card holder was not present when the transaction took place (i.e. internet, phone, etc.) the retailer was 100% liable for any chargeback.

If I get into difficulties charging something back I ask what this field is set to and this usually let's them know I know what I'm talking about. Obviously I don't know if other banks use the same terminology.

Obviously 2. IF you start to chargeback loads of transactions the bank will no longer believe you.