[fidgewidge]

Note that chargebacks are mostly a US thing. In Europe you basically can't charge back and last time I enquired about even blocking a company from making new charges I was told that doing this required me to block the entire card and get a new one issued.

It'd really very odd to see Americans insist that they should have the right to take a service, get the money back for it from the business i.e. get the service for free, and then go back and get service again! That's pretty unfair towards the business.

[michpoch]

There's no problem with making chargebacks in Europe. Maybe you should move to another bank?

[fidgewidge]

Maybe, but I've never heard anyone I know in Europe ever refer to making a chargeback or even raising the possibility of doing one. It certainly isn't common. Perhaps it depends on what country you're in.

[ClumsyPilot]

Chargebacks are mandated by law on credit-cards in Europe, and they have saved the ass of many people, and stopped a lot of fraud.

When covid hapepned, many airplane companies were not refunding cancelled flights, everyone who bought tickets with a credit card could do a chargeback, and buy another ticket. Everyone else was stuck in disputes for months, some for years, some never got money back.

When you pay with a debit card, you are paying with your money. So you could lose all the money you have, that's bad.

But the credit-card is the Bank's money. You could loose all the money you don't have. You could lose unlimited amount of money - after all, the bank decides if to accept a transaction. That's Much Much Worse.

So let's say you bought something for $500 on the credit card, then the bank has to collect this money from you.

So the Chargeback is really you telling the bank that someone stole from them, it was the bank's money after all, and that they cannot collect from you. It is then between the bank and the merchant to fight it out.

Basically the bank is providing you credit, they decide how much credit to provide, and they are also in charge of security -> making sure it was you and not someone stealing your credit card. So they hold the buck.