After 13 years being a RegNow client, later myCommerce, my account was closed without notice, indeed, I found out accidentally when showing my web site to a customer… … During several days I tried to contact them and finally, after 2 or 3 days I got that response:
MyCommerce has terminated your ecommerce service agreement as well as
all related services as a result of unacceptably high levels of
chargebacks and fraud refunds. All funds remaining within your account
as of the date of termination will be held for a reasonable period of
time, but in any event not less than 180 days, to allow a sufficient
time period for the processing of possible customer chargebacks and
returns against which the remaining funds in your account will be
applied. We do require 3 months of no activity before the payment can
be issued after that time period. If you have any questions, please
reply to accounts@mycommerce.com and your concerns will be promptly
addressed.
Amazing, now I am the culprit of that company incompetence and mediocrity. I don’t think fraud handling is my business. I have no way to see it, to prevent it and to fight it. I always though that fraud handling is actually one of the main task of payment processors and they often advertise it. I own another store at Kagi and they sometimes send you suspect orders so you can check them, accept or deny them. I own another store at Paypal and fraud is quite low.
So be careful with those guys, myCommerce is owned by Digital River.
[quote=86325:@Stanley Roche Busk]Amazing, now I am the culprit of that company incompetence and mediocrity. I don’t think fraud handling is my business. I have no way to see it, to prevent it and to fight it. I always though that fraud handling is actually one of the main task of payment processors and they often advertise it. I own another store at Kagi and they sometimes send you suspect orders so you can check them, accept or deny them. I own another store at Paypal and fraud is quite low.
So be careful with those guys, myCommerce is owned by Digital River.[/quote]
In some 20 years of taking cards over the phone, and then through web sites, I had my content of such stupid terminations. I went through 5 different merchant services who all dumped me the same way without warning, holding hostage all proceeds for three months in the process. Digital River approached me back in 1996 with a ton of crap about their bullet proof anti fraud measures and software delivery service, but I did not feel like handing them the cash register. Then they gobbled one after the other all competitors, to become a quasi monopoly.
Lucky me I went to Paypal. Since 2001 I have enjoyed a reliable service, and instead of blaming me for chargebacks, they help fighting that abuse. They also provide a dispute process I have found through the years to save a lot of undue aggravation for my customers, and worries for me. And from what I remember, their fees maybe less than DR.
Consider yourself freed from the servitude of an abusive relationship : DR showed its true colors. Now you can choose a better service.
Hopefully myCommerce is just a backup store and to handle affiliates for Windows versions. My main store is done with Paypal and IPN. It is the best system I have seen, you can do whatever you like and fees are ridiculous. I started with that Paypal store almost a decade ago.
I received another message from those people in response to my complaint:
Hello,
I apologize, however for the last year your account has had an average
monthly chargeback rate of 10% by unit which has flagged with all major
credit cards. This is a risk to our merchant account and we can not
support any account with that high of chargeback rate.
[quote=86575:@Stanley Roche Busk]I received another message from those people in response to my complaint:
[/quote]
A 10% chargeback rate? That is insane. This is not granted refund requests. So I’d guess that more than 20% of your customers ask you for a refund, which you deny, because you pretty much have to be seriously angry to file a chargeback with a credit card.
[quote=86634:@Brad Hutchings]A 10% chargeback rate? That is insane. This is not granted refund requests. So I’d guess that more than 20% of your customers ask you for a refund, which you deny, because you pretty much have to be seriously angry to file a chargeback with a credit card.
What exactly are you selling and for how much?[/quote]
Chargebacks happen sometimes because customers abuse the system and claim they do not recognize a transaction when in fact they had received the goods. But that is probably not the most common case.
I sell special fonts to print checks at http://MICR-Fonts.com and unfortunately experience often chargeback because of the nature of the software. Crooks seem to love using MICR fonts, and of course they use stolen credit card numbers. The trademark of thieves is usually that they purchase the most expensive packages. Amazingly enough, $19.95 packages do not trigger chargebacks.
Intense fraudulent activity is probably much higher for other soft goods, such as travel e-tickets purchased over the Internet, or luxury items by mail for instance.
I was with DR Atlantic. Their charges were high and their notifications are unreliable. After 18 years they insisted I move to MyCommerce , promising simplified setup and lower charges, and wanting exclusivity.
They almost convinced me, but…
Possibly the charges were lower, but it turns out that despite not being VAT registered, they insist on charging VAT on top of my prices.
Effectively hiking the end cost up by anything from 10 to 25 %, (or reducing my profit by the same amount if the end user price stayed where I wanted it.)
I had a paypal method already, but it needed me to be awake 24/7 to provide a responsive service.
So I created a post here asking for recommendations, and found eJunkie and Paypal to be perfect.
eJunkie charge £15 per month, but give my customers an instant response. They handle serial numbers, downloads, disable the links after a period of time so file sharing is reduced, and Paypal handle the money.
I consider that a bargain.
There are a small number of customers who don’t like the word ‘PayPal’, and fine… I still maintain a link to MyCommerce to allow them somewhere to pay using money transfer, cheques, or baked beans.
On topic: MyCommerce aren’t showing a high percentage of chargebacks on my account. 10% looks very unusual.
Paypal call refund requests ‘chargebacks’… I see the odd one now and then.
Much less now that I use eJunkie , because it delivers immediately.
I sell a $100 bundle. Every single month on myCommerce I suddenly got several bundle sales that looked normal. At the very beginning of next months al those bundles are charged backs. That only happens on myCommerce. These are my charge backs and refunds rates for 2013, july to december at myCommerce, Paypal and Kagi:
myCommerce Paypal Kagi
July 31.67% 2.61% 0.00%
August 23.90% 1.83% 1.37%
September 11.03% 2.70% 4.74%
October 35.88% 3.15% 9.95%
November 22.89% 1.55% 4.09%
December 24.73% 1.00% 2.58%
Average 25.02% 2.14% 3.79%
My conclusion is that myCommerce has a serious problem, charge back rate is 12 times higher than at Paypal. I sell the very same products everywhere the very same way and all customers have the choice to choose the store they prefer. Paypal and Kagi rates are mostly refunds because of duplicate purchases, purchases with VAT that are canceled and done again without it… etc… I believe the real charge back rate is below 0.5%.
From the DR letter they mention “our merchant account” as if they where small joe like us with a merchant account from some plain out of the box merchant account. It sounds as if their merchant account, probably based in the US, is ill-equipped to deal with European sales where there is no address verification. For the longest time, they even went as stupid as rejecting some European IP because they where on the same backbone as what they considered suspicious countries.
The same amateurish merchant account is probably set now on a lower security value to accomodate non-verified addresses, and it lets through all the filth in the universe, and all these fraudulent transactions generate chargebacks. In other words, as it often happens with xenophobic US companies, you are suspect of not being American, of dealing with alien customers, and therefore not to be trusted. Or respected, for that matter.
Paypal, on the other hand, is based in Luxembourg, and probably put in place a far more European friendly system.
DR is better forgotten, and warned against. They will probably generate enough frustrations to eventually drive themselves out of business.
My thoughts exactly! Over the years, I’ve logged the hassles I’ve had with them in this very forum (and the previous incarnation).
However they aren’t going anywhere, they provide the “subscription” mechanism for Adobe. It does answer why they treat small companies like we’re nothing…
… During several days I tried to contact them and finally, after 2 or 3 days I got that response: