Two Banks, Three Cards, Nine Transactions, and Total Success

The Basis for the Dispute

V.P.G. is a French-speaking Canadian who wished to try his luck with online investing. Unfortunately, he got involved with an unregulated and unethical brokerage, so in the end luck had nothing to do with it. By the time he realized that his deposits were being stolen and all the trades were purely fictitious, he had sent them over $14,000 in Canadian currency using three separate credit cards issued by two different banks.

Not only did the broker refuse to return the money (hardly surprising, given their illegal business model), but sadly his bank also informed V.P.G. that failed investments do not qualify for a chargeback. While that is technically true, they failed to appreciate the nature of the case at hand, in which their customer never received any actual investment services.

This is precisely the sort of complex payment dispute that MyChargeBack is adept at handling. So when V.P.G. finally reached out to us for help, we took on his case with confidence.

Strategies and Tactics

As in every payment dispute, the first step is to gather evidence. We guided V.P.G. in collecting from his computer and his papers all the critical information that would prove his case. This included credit card statements for all nine transactions representing the sum total of his deposits with the broker.

No less important were screenshots of his trading platform showing his balance as well as his and their activity at certain critical periods. Other screenshots demonstrated the broker’s unethical assurances and refusals at different times. In addition, we did not require our client’s help to gather evidence of the broker being unregulated and unlicensed to offer investment services in Canada (or possibly anywhere else for that matter).

With all the information in hand, our next task was to compile it into a single clear, concise and persuasive document to be presented to the card issuing banks. Finally, in order to comply with all possible interpretations of Visa and Mastercard rules, we drafted a letter for our client to send to the merchant formally ending their business relationship and demanding a full refund.

With all the preliminary tasks completed, it was time to schedule a conference call for each of our client’s two card issuing banks with him and our agent assigned to his case. Following those phone calls we provided the banks with the document mentioned above. Seeing the case for a refund laid out so clearly and logically, both banks raised the chargebacks to the merchant’s acquiring bank and issued preliminary refunds to our client.

At this point, there was nothing further to do on our end but wait and see what the responses would be from our client’s banks, the merchant, and the merchant’s acquiring bank.

The MyChargeBack Difference

When the acquiring bank informed the merchant of the list of chargeback requests, they responded by contacting our client directly. This is not an unusual occurrence, and one that we had prepared our client for ahead of time. The merchant first offered our client a settlement of $2,900, representing less than one quarter of the lost funds. We advised our client that while the ultimate decision was his, we believed that his case was strong enough to refuse the offer.

A month later, the merchant contacted V.P.G. again, informing him that he was approved for a full refund, but first had to pay taxes on it. We advised him that they were attempting to defraud him anew, and to categorically refuse to send them any more money under any circumstances.

At this stage, the case settled into a slow waiting game, punctuated by us reassuring our client that such delays are not unusual, and occasionally advising him to request updates from his banks. Within four months, one of his issuing banks informed him that the chargeback was successful. It took nearly a full year for the second bank to do the same, but in the end his provisional refunds were made permanent, and with our assistance he had recovered all of his lost funds.