[mcherm]

Actually, these are two different risks. nomocrypto is worried about the risk that the exchange will misuse his payment information to make bogus bank transfers; Wells Fargo is worried about the risk that nomocrypto will fail to pay back the card. The credit card issuers are not particularly worried about fraudulent "merchant" charges.

[ajross]

I'm not sure that's a distinction with meaning. Ultimately nonocrypto is worried that the exchange will behave in shady, fraudulent ways to which he doesn't want to be exposed. Ditto for the bank. The fact that the most obvious expression of those two kinds of fraud are different doesn't really change the risk analysis much. Someone willing to game one end of a system is likely to try to game the other.

> The credit card issuers are not particularly worried about fraudulent "merchant" charges.

Sort of true, but... isn't that exactly what happened here? The reasons banks don't sweat merchant fraud is that they can just refuse to do business with them. And here Wells Fargo is preemptively deciding that all exchanges are shady.

[gowld]

Chargebacks aren't a risk between cardholder and bank/processor. Vendors pay chargebacks, so chargebacks are a risk between vendor and bank. If a vendor is high-chargeback, or at risk of not paying back chargebacks, bank/processor should ban the vendor.

non-payment of credit card debt is risk between cardholder and bank/processor. bank/processor should prefer to ban customers like this, not vendors (if possible). Customers can "launder" money through many sources (cash advance, cashback, shady businesses) if they intend to put that money in a speculative investment and maybe not pay back the debt.

bank vs processor is another dimension of complication to sort out.

[michaelt]

Well, presumably Wells Fargo is worried about two things: The buyer not being able to pay them back AND that the buyer's card details are being used fraudulently.

Can't ding their credit rating if their card details got stolen.

[chimeracoder]

> Wells Fargo is worried about the risk that nomocrypto will fail to pay back the card. The credit card issuers are not particularly worried about fraudulent "merchant" charges.

Yes, they are different risks. But the issuer is still worried about fraudulent charges initiated by the merchant, in addition to the risk that nomocrypto will fail to pay off the balance.

[abalone]

> But the issuer is still worried about fraudulent charges initiated by the merchant

Are they though? Generally the risk of merchant fraud is borne by that merchant's processor. There is some overhead for the issuer in processing chargebacks, but if this were an issue then we'd expect to see many other types of fraud-prone online merchants being banned.

It seems clear that this is an extension of the common prohibitions on using credit cards for gambling.[1] But I should add that it's not that they're worried about failure to repay. That risk is generally controlled by credit limits. It's the fraudulent chargebacks that cardholders initiate when they lose their money.

[1] https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/10-things-credi...

[chimeracoder]

> Are they though?

Yes, they definitely are. Trust me on this one.