Disputing credit card charges for tickets cancelled by Malaysian Airlines
Oct 9, 2020, 5:53 am
#31
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Well done! But I do wonder who has stomached the cost of restoring the credit to you? Is it MH, having had Amex reversed the payment? Or does MH continue to keep the payment but Amex decided to pay out of pocket (as part of their marketing of the card)? I hope it’s not the latter, because MH definitely does NOT deserve to keep any of the payment - having not delivered the service that you had originally purchased, and the alternative offered was nowhere close to what you had wanted to purchase.
Oct 9, 2020, 7:21 am
#32
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Alternatively, MH's merchant acquirer may simply issued the credit against MH's chargeback holdback.
No way to know and not something the consumer ought to particularly be involved in. It all comes out in the wash because MH winds up with a higher holdback (not as the result of this one incident) and that puts a squeeze on its liquidity over time. That can act as a powerful incentive.
No way to know and not something the consumer ought to particularly be involved in. It all comes out in the wash because MH winds up with a higher holdback (not as the result of this one incident) and that puts a squeeze on its liquidity over time. That can act as a powerful incentive.
Oct 9, 2020, 2:04 pm
#33
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Alternatively, MH's merchant acquirer may simply issued the credit against MH's chargeback holdback.
No way to know and not something the consumer ought to particularly be involved in. It all comes out in the wash because MH winds up with a higher holdback (not as the result of this one incident) and that puts a squeeze on its liquidity over time. That can act as a powerful incentive.
No way to know and not something the consumer ought to particularly be involved in. It all comes out in the wash because MH winds up with a higher holdback (not as the result of this one incident) and that puts a squeeze on its liquidity over time. That can act as a powerful incentive.
Many airlines have chargeback rates over 10%. This is why so many banks are 'declining' dispute requests - because they're
The sad reality is, for most airlines - there isn't enough cash anywhere to provide cash refunds.
Holdbacks are long gone, my friend.
Oct 9, 2020, 3:59 pm
#34
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Airlines all over the world are granted special exemptions from the card schemes and issuers.
Many airlines have chargeback rates over 10%. This is why so many banks are 'declining' dispute requests - because they'recolluding working with airlines and schemes.
The sad reality is, for most airlines - there isn't enough cash anywhere to provide cash refunds.
Holdbacks are long gone, my friend.
Many airlines have chargeback rates over 10%. This is why so many banks are 'declining' dispute requests - because they're
The sad reality is, for most airlines - there isn't enough cash anywhere to provide cash refunds.
Holdbacks are long gone, my friend.
Plain and simple, "service not provided" results in a chargeback sustained. It may take a bit of pushing and pulling, but it gets there.
Oct 9, 2020, 4:45 pm
#35
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 2,016
If the holdbacks are long gone (emptied or at negative value due to too many chargebacks), can't the banks just withhold 100% of the transaction amount from future transactions until the holdback has been replenished? Anyway, it's not the cardholder's problem if there's too little money left in the holdback. It's the bank who takes a hit.
Oct 10, 2020, 3:44 pm
#36
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If the holdbacks are long gone (emptied or at negative value due to too many chargebacks), can't the banks just withhold 100% of the transaction amount from future transactions until the holdback has been replenished? Anyway, it's not the cardholder's problem if there's too little money left in the holdback. It's the bank who takes a hit.
Frankly, it's disgusting how they've treated customers who are only trying to do the right thing.
This will all come out in the wash eventually, but in the meantime - don't settle for a credit of ant type!
Oct 10, 2020, 5:16 pm
#37
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If the holdbacks are long gone (emptied or at negative value due to too many chargebacks), can't the banks just withhold 100% of the transaction amount from future transactions until the holdback has been replenished? Anyway, it's not the cardholder's problem if there's too little money left in the holdback. It's the bank who takes a hit.
2. You have hit the nail on the head. Merchant acquirers are way ahead of the game. As soon as massive cancellations started to occur, holdbacks were increased. Remember that the holdback protects the acquirer in the event of the merchant's insolvency. If the merchant remains operational, there will be revenue, albeit diminished.
In the end, an acquirer might wind up eating the losses, but that would only occur if it is not watching credit risk. And that is what it is paid to do and does.
Oct 14, 2020, 11:35 pm
#38
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SUMMARY
Having originally had the cost of my MH ticket credited back to my Amex account on April 28th, it was then uncredited on July 8th, after Amex received a response from MH. It was however recredited on July 13th after I pointed out to Amex that the voucher MH were offering did not constitute proper restitution, and that most of MH's documentation in support of their assertion that my ticket should not be refunded was spurious.
It's now October 5th, and having heard nothing further I checked the status of my dispute and it seems that I am home and dry:
I am inferring from this, that Amex accepts that Malaysian Airline's offer of a voucher which can only be used to purchase higher-priced fares from a call centre is not proper restitution for flights cancelled by the airline.
It is clearly worth persisting!
Having originally had the cost of my MH ticket credited back to my Amex account on April 28th, it was then uncredited on July 8th, after Amex received a response from MH. It was however recredited on July 13th after I pointed out to Amex that the voucher MH were offering did not constitute proper restitution, and that most of MH's documentation in support of their assertion that my ticket should not be refunded was spurious.
It's now October 5th, and having heard nothing further I checked the status of my dispute and it seems that I am home and dry:
I am inferring from this, that Amex accepts that Malaysian Airline's offer of a voucher which can only be used to purchase higher-priced fares from a call centre is not proper restitution for flights cancelled by the airline.
It is clearly worth persisting!
Nov 4, 2020, 2:25 am
#39
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A sign of the times
Looks like someone has spotted an opportunity arising from all the covid-related charge-backs taking place:
"Hi GGL Wannabe
As a business that is affected by chargebacks, I wanted to introduce myself and the specialist self-service chargeback defence service my company offers.
Our self-service platform allows you to generate robust, evidence-based chargeback defence statements. We guide you through the process using a combination of your merchant data and scheme rules to help create a defence. The aim is to prove the charge was valid and/or the reason code to be invalid.
Customers are getting increasingly knowledgeable about their options including chargebacks, and that makes it even more important to have a considered approach to them. We are seeing customers less and less willing to wait for 'an investigation' and are turning to the chargebacks process as a proxy for customer service support.
This costs money and time. We see that for every Ł100 chargeback (lost revenue) there is another 20% on top in labour and fees, with our new solution we can set you up to defend them well, cost-effectively and in-house.
Can we speak to tell you more about our unique service and what it will deliver in cost and time savings?"
What is being said is that some consumers are requesting charge-backs from credit card companies without first exhausting the merchant's normal customer service options, and in such cases this company will step in to help. However, I suspect that actually they aim to provide merchants who take credit cards with strategies to delay/defeat claims whether potentially legitimate or not.
I'm sure there will soon be plethora of companies offering such services. It will be interesting to see if Malaysian Airlines takes up with any of them.
"Hi GGL Wannabe
As a business that is affected by chargebacks, I wanted to introduce myself and the specialist self-service chargeback defence service my company offers.
Our self-service platform allows you to generate robust, evidence-based chargeback defence statements. We guide you through the process using a combination of your merchant data and scheme rules to help create a defence. The aim is to prove the charge was valid and/or the reason code to be invalid.
Customers are getting increasingly knowledgeable about their options including chargebacks, and that makes it even more important to have a considered approach to them. We are seeing customers less and less willing to wait for 'an investigation' and are turning to the chargebacks process as a proxy for customer service support.
This costs money and time. We see that for every Ł100 chargeback (lost revenue) there is another 20% on top in labour and fees, with our new solution we can set you up to defend them well, cost-effectively and in-house.
Can we speak to tell you more about our unique service and what it will deliver in cost and time savings?"
What is being said is that some consumers are requesting charge-backs from credit card companies without first exhausting the merchant's normal customer service options, and in such cases this company will step in to help. However, I suspect that actually they aim to provide merchants who take credit cards with strategies to delay/defeat claims whether potentially legitimate or not.
I'm sure there will soon be plethora of companies offering such services. It will be interesting to see if Malaysian Airlines takes up with any of them.
Nov 4, 2020, 6:55 am
#40
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This is hardly new.
While most of the ticket-related refund / chargeback discussions on FT since the advent of the pandemic have dealt with the failure of air carriers to make refunds for flights they have cancelled or significantly changed, the simple fact is that on a broader basis, chargebacks are widely abused and are a significant burden on many businesses.
This is not an issue which can be painted with a broad brush.
But, just as I have routinely advised that a consumer making a chargeback demand on his card issuer, properly document the chargeback so that there is little or no basis for dispute, merchants can and should do the same in reverse. Some services do nothing more than state the obvious and provide a PDF-generator for the merchant. Others provide clearcut templates for forms and language which ought to appear when a merchant is unfairly targeted. In the end many merchants simply let smallish chargebacks slide because contesting them takes too much time. Software-based solutions can make it all easier.
While most of the ticket-related refund / chargeback discussions on FT since the advent of the pandemic have dealt with the failure of air carriers to make refunds for flights they have cancelled or significantly changed, the simple fact is that on a broader basis, chargebacks are widely abused and are a significant burden on many businesses.
This is not an issue which can be painted with a broad brush.
But, just as I have routinely advised that a consumer making a chargeback demand on his card issuer, properly document the chargeback so that there is little or no basis for dispute, merchants can and should do the same in reverse. Some services do nothing more than state the obvious and provide a PDF-generator for the merchant. Others provide clearcut templates for forms and language which ought to appear when a merchant is unfairly targeted. In the end many merchants simply let smallish chargebacks slide because contesting them takes too much time. Software-based solutions can make it all easier.
Nov 5, 2020, 3:21 pm
#41
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...
This costs money and time. We see that for every Ł100 chargeback (lost revenue) there is another 20% on top in labour and fees, with our new solution we can set you up to defend them well, cost-effectively and in-house.
Can we speak to tell you more about our unique service and what it will deliver in cost and time savings?"... .
This costs money and time. We see that for every Ł100 chargeback (lost revenue) there is another 20% on top in labour and fees, with our new solution we can set you up to defend them well, cost-effectively and in-house.
Can we speak to tell you more about our unique service and what it will deliver in cost and time savings?"... .
Nov 6, 2020, 3:12 am
#42
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Posts: 590
This was an email sent to commercial organisations that accept payment by credit card, so as I understand it this refers to staff time and costs in processing charge-backs
Last edited by GGLwannabe; Nov 6, 2020 at 4:38 am Reason: Correcting grammar
Nov 6, 2020, 10:45 am
#43
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 2,016
The banks get a notification that the customer has requested a chargeback, so some people working for the banks need to investigate the request. The banks have to pay salary to these people and the merchant has to pay a fee to compensate the banks for this.
The merchant gets a notification that the customer has requested a chargeback. The chargeback could be either legitimate or fraudulent, so the merchant needs to take a look at the chargeback request and decide how to respond to the request. If the merchant does nothing, then the customer gets the money back, but not all customers are entitled to a refund. For example, some customers could have requested a chargeback even though they were on the flight and these customers should obviously not have a refund.
The merchant gets a notification that the customer has requested a chargeback. The chargeback could be either legitimate or fraudulent, so the merchant needs to take a look at the chargeback request and decide how to respond to the request. If the merchant does nothing, then the customer gets the money back, but not all customers are entitled to a refund. For example, some customers could have requested a chargeback even though they were on the flight and these customers should obviously not have a refund.
Nov 22, 2020, 1:00 am
#45
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 10
Just like many over here, being in the same situation that MH cancels flights allover, I requested a chargebacks through Amex.
For these chargebacks to be succesfull, I did the following:
- Create a long (in time and substance) communication trail towards MH (actually, they never gave a human answer).
- Show the communication channels to MH are valid.
- Show that I did do many attempts to get into contact with MH for a rebooking solution and subsequently asked cash refunds.
- Gave MH with each request their stated period (15 working days) time to react (though I never got a human reply).
- Show the original and if applicable changed tickets.
- Show AMEX, I gave suitable options to change the flights (when there was still availability in the correct booking classes), options which gradually got cancelled to, though that's not relevant.
- Show the MH cancelation notices for each of the legs.
- Show MH changed the itinerary on their own account, resulting in some left-over disconnected segments, no longer connecting, etc.
- Show with FlightRadar24 overviews all of these legs did never fly.
- Show with expertflyer.com overviews of booking class availability.
- Show with MH and matrix.itasoftware.com, there are no (affordable) alternatives/dates in near future for the relevant trajects I would be interested in to fly with MH.
- And an accompanying letter, stating the above AND that I am no longer interested to deal with an airline who does not even react to my requests.
On the phone, the Amex spokes person was quite sensible to the fact MH never reacted to my requests.
My documentation for the first dispute was 40 pages, for the second dispute 46 pages.
For both disputes, I got my money back without further discussion, though with the notice, MH would get some 6-8 weeks time to react on the raised dispute. Dispute 1 is now around 9 weeks ago and I did not hear any further, so I assume the refund has become permanent. For dispute 2, MH has until end of the year to react.
My take is, once MH does notice a properly documented dispute, with especially their non-comms part emphasized, they will not bother to reply back.
What I also did, is keep some more arguments "in stock", just in case MH would come back disputing the dispute, so I would have more arguments towards Amex.
All in all, the whole dispute process takes quite some time and one needs to assume upfront, things will not resolve and as such document carefully, accordingly.
Some notes:
- I do spend monthly some USD 50-100K on this card, so this might influence how AMEX does deal with my disputes.....
- Tickets are largely (nearly) fully refundable Business class tickets, so the effective discussion stake is at the most around USD 200-300 or so.
- Be aware, the dispute documentation you sent in will be passed on to MH......
- Given MH's behavior, chances I want to fly again with MH are very low. I do have alternatives available. sometimes more expensive, so be it. MH does deserve to be tarred and feathered ......
- Compare with the MH handling CX, Cathay Pacific, was a breeze and I certainly would not hesitate to book CX again, the moment they have flights available, etc. MH, no way.
Ehh, good luck
For these chargebacks to be succesfull, I did the following:
- Create a long (in time and substance) communication trail towards MH (actually, they never gave a human answer).
- Show the communication channels to MH are valid.
- Show that I did do many attempts to get into contact with MH for a rebooking solution and subsequently asked cash refunds.
- Gave MH with each request their stated period (15 working days) time to react (though I never got a human reply).
- Show the original and if applicable changed tickets.
- Show AMEX, I gave suitable options to change the flights (when there was still availability in the correct booking classes), options which gradually got cancelled to, though that's not relevant.
- Show the MH cancelation notices for each of the legs.
- Show MH changed the itinerary on their own account, resulting in some left-over disconnected segments, no longer connecting, etc.
- Show with FlightRadar24 overviews all of these legs did never fly.
- Show with expertflyer.com overviews of booking class availability.
- Show with MH and matrix.itasoftware.com, there are no (affordable) alternatives/dates in near future for the relevant trajects I would be interested in to fly with MH.
- And an accompanying letter, stating the above AND that I am no longer interested to deal with an airline who does not even react to my requests.
On the phone, the Amex spokes person was quite sensible to the fact MH never reacted to my requests.
My documentation for the first dispute was 40 pages, for the second dispute 46 pages.
For both disputes, I got my money back without further discussion, though with the notice, MH would get some 6-8 weeks time to react on the raised dispute. Dispute 1 is now around 9 weeks ago and I did not hear any further, so I assume the refund has become permanent. For dispute 2, MH has until end of the year to react.
My take is, once MH does notice a properly documented dispute, with especially their non-comms part emphasized, they will not bother to reply back.
What I also did, is keep some more arguments "in stock", just in case MH would come back disputing the dispute, so I would have more arguments towards Amex.
All in all, the whole dispute process takes quite some time and one needs to assume upfront, things will not resolve and as such document carefully, accordingly.
Some notes:
- I do spend monthly some USD 50-100K on this card, so this might influence how AMEX does deal with my disputes.....
- Tickets are largely (nearly) fully refundable Business class tickets, so the effective discussion stake is at the most around USD 200-300 or so.
- Be aware, the dispute documentation you sent in will be passed on to MH......
- Given MH's behavior, chances I want to fly again with MH are very low. I do have alternatives available. sometimes more expensive, so be it. MH does deserve to be tarred and feathered ......
- Compare with the MH handling CX, Cathay Pacific, was a breeze and I certainly would not hesitate to book CX again, the moment they have flights available, etc. MH, no way.
Ehh, good luck