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by michaelmrose 1540 days ago
They make their money by acting as an integrated intermediary. They didn't borrow money separately and then use that money to buy an item. They borrowed as an integrated step in the purchase interface.

By acting as the intermediary they are the only party that received the posters money and ergo the only and appropriate party to claw the money back from. This is no different from buying a widget on amazon. Failing to receive the widget. Initiating a chargeback for the money.

Regardless of whether amazon was actually responsible for providing the widget they received your money and ergo they are responsible for giving it back.

Indeed its not really any different from a direct retail purchase where you buy a box and if you open the box and instead of nice new widget you find one that looks like it was mauled by a bear. Can you imagine going to the returns counter and being told despite paying us your money at our point of sale you need to fly to china and sue them if you want your money back. It's just not how the universe works.

They most likely actually CAN'T take money and deliver nothing and make it someone else's problem if they both want to do business in the US and keep doing business with credit card issuers here.

1 comments

This isn't a good analogy. A retailer is responsible for giving you what you ordered (a nice new widget) because you are literally buying it from them. In this case, Affirm isn't fulfilling the purchase at all.

I think a better analogy would be you bought a house, but you find out later the seller lied about something (maybe they didn't install a new roof like they claimed), so you think the best course of action is to stop making mortgage payments to your bank.

> Regardless of whether amazon was actually responsible for providing the widget they received your money and ergo they are responsible for giving it back.

Yeah, after you request a refund from them. Try issuing a chargeback to Amazon next time you buy something from a 3rd party seller, I think you will have a bad time.