Hey guys, I wanted to ask you if any of you have experienced the way Monzo handles chargebacks ? I had a disastrous experience and wanted to ask if there is still anything that can be done.
On February 23rd , I initiated Chargeback against an Indian IT provider via PayPal. The reason for the chargeback was because I received plagiarized website and I had to pay other people to fix it. The amount in question is $1,900. Monzo told me that if 45 days pass without the chargeback being disputed, I will get my money.
A few days ago, I received a notification that my Monzo account is at MINUS $1,900. Thatâs right, instead of receiving $1,900 back, they took $1,900. They fixed the problem the next day but told me the chargeback had failed.
Now, at the beginning of the process, one girl in the chat told me that success depends on whether paypal disputes - she said, if paypal disputes, paypal always wins. This was a red flag for me because I figured , ok then , WHY THE HELL SHOULDNT THEY ALWAYS DISPUTE ? Anyway, after I was told that the chargeback had failed, they also told me that there is no way to dispute this further.
Which is total bollocks ! I have read the Mastercard guidelines on chargebacks - there are many instances in which you can dispute. And Monzo does not want to do the job. My $1,900 was just thrown in the garbage - I provided overwhelming evidence that the work I received was plagiarized and that I paid $5,000 to fix the damage but Monzo just does not want to do its job and fight for my rights !
I did but this failed. It is very ridiculous, but apparantly, PayPal does not offer protection for delivered goods that âdid not meet expectationsâ or that were âplagiarizedâ . So essentially paypal told me, they provided you the service, we dont care it was plagiarized and you cannot legally use it. And that was it. They told me to contact my credit card company.
I really donât understand how is it that Monzo cannot dispute this thing. There are things such as Pre-Arbitrage and Arbitrage and , OK, I get it that I lost and I get it that I might lose again, but to hear that it cannot be disputed further simply means that somebody does not want to do his job
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Anarchist
(Press âHelpâ search âContact usâ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
4
That was my thoughts. I wouldnât expect a chargeback against PayPal to work, because PayPal have done what they would be expected to do, pad the money to the supplier.
It is not exactly like that . I am running an online business and occasionally I receive disputes on paypal and I respond and win them. However, if the client goes to the bank and disputes there (chargeback), I always, always lose. You just never win a chargeback because , in case of chargeback, its also written on the paypal terms and conditions, the clientâs bank (monzo in my case) decides the outcome . Obviously, the clientâs bank will sideâŚwith the client and paypal will lose. Then Paypal will take it from the merchant.
What happened here is that not only they decided AGAINST ME, but it cannot even be disputed ?
From what I understand, unlike Section 75 disputes (offered by credit cards), the chargeback scheme that comes debit cards is best effort - the issuing bank will try to recover the funds from the merchant bank. Some banks will nonetheless credit your account while they try, but they will take funds out of your account again if it fails.
Edit: ah - your last response sounds interesting. Letâs see what happens, maybe a member of the Monzo Team will chime in.
Personally, I would not settle for the first response with Paypal. Although for a much smaller amount I had the reverse happen to me. I had received a chargeback for a payment, however, had made PayPal aware of numerous accounts making fraudulent payments.
In the first instance, the money was taken from me but I disputed again and they reimbursed the money. Presumably, Paypal actually paid this out of their own pocket.
Paypal is notoriously difficult, however. I still have money tied up that was paid around 15 years ago. Money paid to a hosting provider, they came into financial difficulties and requested an advance payment, stupidly I paid. However, so many people created a chargeback that Paypal put a hold on their account and held the funds. To this day their account is locked and Paypal has retained all funds.
Chargeback is a little known scheme which gives you a chance of getting your money back from your bank if you bought faulty goods, a service wasnât provided, or the company you bought something from went bust and your goods werenât delivered. [source]
The above would summarise why your chargeback failed, I believe. The service you paid for was provided, even though youâre not happy with the quality of it.
Granted, the same source also later says:
Quality of item â the goods were not as described or were defective.
but I think thatâs really for physical goods, and that with a service itâs harder to demonstrate that this is a valid reason for a chargeback.
IANAL so I couldnât say what your next step would be. Possibly taking the IT provider to court over breach of contract or similar?
How to bring and Indian based IT company to court It doesnât work like that. I still believe the chargeback can be further disputed.
And its really not like ''they provided the service but I didnt like it" . Just imagine, you pay a firm to construct a website for you to sell shoes and they go ahead and copy Zalando. It was basically the same in my case.
I appreciate youâve been ripped off, and I donât dispute that for one minute. Iâm simply applying the chargeback rules (as I understand them) to your situation and can see why it failed - you got the service. Thereâs no exception for the service being of adequate quality (other than in the case of a physical object being faulty) so, given the service was delivered, thereâs no grounds for a chargeback.
To use an analogy; HMV might give me my money back because a CD is faulty and wonât play. Theyâre not going to give me my money back because I think Down In It ripped off Dig It.
As for the difficulties of any legal proceedings, Iâd hazard a guess that might be a key point of the Indian-based IT companyâs business plan.
I just think that all this developed extremely quickly and somebody from the Monzo chargeback team either does not understand the process or does not want to do his/her job properly. I refuse to to accept that the outcome cannot be disputed further, since Mastercard offers two more instances in which one can dispute.
Iâm really sorry to hear about this! After doing a little digging I can see this is being handled right now. I donât want to bring up details of your account but we have advised you why this chargeback (dispute) has failed. It has indeed been raised with our specialists.
Unfortunately PayPal chargebacks are often unsuccessful
However, when I did some research online, it seems that clients have overwhelming advantage when doing a chargeback with paypal. The reason for this is, as described in PayPal terms and conditions AND on Mastercard guidelines, is that the bank of the client decides who wins the chargeback. THEN, there are two more instances (pre-arbitrage) and (Arbitrage). In my case, I just heard that chargeback was unsuccessful and thats it, nothing can be done . I really donât understand how this might be possible.
Iâm not sure how you didnât win you claim with PayPal using the option âYou receive an item but itâs significantly different than the description on eBay or on the sellerâs websiteâ. The difference is that it was plagiarised and not bespoke as you had requested⌠unless it looked like Zalandoâs when you ordered it. PayPal have a good tract record of getting buyers to destroy fake items⌠even when they are actually real and rare (much to sellers annoyance).
MasterCard also allow Chargeback for âQuestionable Merchant Activityâ as well as âGoods or Services Not Providedâ which you could claim has happened to you. However you should have presented your case clearly with the evidence why the website is fraudulent as well as not based on your original order request. Hopefully Monzo passing it to a Specialist is just because of the amount you are claiming back.
However, in the end, you may need to maybe submit a complaint to Monzo stating what has happened again, what Monzo have done (or not done) so far (making sure you state your believed rights) and how you want the complaint resolved. I would write it by letter to their head office within the chargeback period making sure you point out it is an official complaint. Make sure you supply evidence of the fraudulent activity and that the goods and services you requested have not been provided.
In the end, and I know it wonât help you now, I use PayPal Credit for this very reason. To have Section 75 rights on PayPal.
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Anarchist
(Press âHelpâ search âContact usâ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
17
I hope it goes well for you and that you get the resolution you want.
If youâre not happy with Monzoâs handling of the complaint, then quite simply, take it up with the Financial Ombudsman Service. Monzo should have advised you of this in their final response to your complaint and provided instructions for contacting them.
Thanks for all the good advices and encouragement. Monzo contacted me and admitted that, indeed, there was a way to further dispute that, through an arbitrage process. It will cost 30 pounds but, considering that I am disputing 1450 pounds, mathematically, my expected return is positive even if I only had 3 % chance of winning .
3 % to win 1450 + 97 % chance to lose 30 = 43,5 - 29.1 = 14.4 positive !!!
In other words, I would be better off to appeal even if I had only 3% chance to win. In this case, considering the huge amount in question, I donât understand why Monzo not only did not advised me to appeal, but did not even tell me that an opportunity to appeal at such a ridiculous cost exists.
It doesnât work like that. I still believe the chargeback can be further disputed.
