I have a membership site that sells a digital product. While paypal always sides with the seller on the sale of digital goods (because intangible items are not covered for protection), chargebacks are not covered. Sometimes buyers will log in and use our service but then file an unauthorized payment chargeback. I have successfully fought 2 or 3 unauthorized payment charges, in the instances where the buyer was dumb enough to email us first, then file the unathorized payment charge. In these cases, I have my statcounter logs and the email from the buyer with the buyer's IP, matching the statcounter logs. I send this to paypal and if the evidence is there, you CAN WIN these unauthorized payment chargebacks.
Now, what I want to do is figure out a way to make the buyer verify the he or she is the person making the purchase and they themselves are the ones authorizing it. I was thinking about adding some type of page that shows up before (or after?) payment, and basically have the buyer fill out some type of form/agreement before they use our service, but I haven't yet been able to figure out what exactly to write/ask the buyer that would actually be enough evidence in case of an unauthorized payment chargeback. Hopefully this makes sense. Any input is welcome.
To counter this, I have my ' thank you page ' as an actual form that states that they have agreed to this purchase and to accessing this page voluntarily of their own free will and understnading that this is a digital item and to proceed past this point will confirm and complete the sale.
This also states that they have a full 24 hours to properly refund from the time of downloading, after that, there are no refunds due to you keeping the product for longer than the 24 hour refund trial period, you agree to keep the product permanently.
Under that, there are two buttons, one is an email form and submit button. The second being a cancel button, that links them to the cancel/return to previous action. This is all with an automatic checkbox with the standard " I have read, understand and agree to these terms and policies and to voluntarily complete this purchase transaction. " statement.
If they enter an email and click the submit, the link is sent to their email and they are then tracked for the access of the view and download with a timestamp stat log.
Once they do that I have them and paypal has NEVER completed a chargeback since.
Important!!! : This is only one method of doing this and you can ofcourse customize it to anyway you want to use it but whatever you put in the terms must be clearly stated and on that thankyou page...not hidden or in tiny print.
Mine, for example has " PLEASE READ COMPLETELY BEFORE SUBMITTING FOR PRODUCT DOWNLOAD LINK!!! " and 97% of the people that hit that page never stay on more than a minute.
Next, in the email that they get, there are two clearly marked links...
1. thanks for purchasing product, here is your download link.
2. if you have any questions, comments, problems/issues, refund requests, feedback, here is the place to do it.
They take them to the download page or the support contact form area, where they can select the action they want to send from that form. This also timestamps and dates when it was sent/received.
Finally, there is a confirmation email sent out immediately for whichever response is done. If they download it, the clock starts and 24 hours later, an additional email is sent to let them know again ' just a quick note to say thank you for your purchase how much we appreciate your choice to keep and use out product through the 24 hour, risk free trial period...and here's another offer to look at. '
Keep it clean and keep it honest. The only way that anyone will win this claim against you is if they actually request a refund from you within the time allowed. If they do, so what. I remove link access to their unique generated download link and move on to the next.
In my experience with affiliate marketing streams, using this method has taken my refund rate from over 30%, back down to 7%.
This is completely legal, as it is clearly posted and their choice to go through with it or not. I've only had 14 chargebacks over the last 2 years with people trying to buy and then rip me off by using a chargeback instead of a refund request and I've won EVERY time due to this method right here.
Keep it simple, keep it clean and keep it directly in the open. If they buy, they keep the product and your keep your profits and your rep with your merchant and the affiliate product owners.
