[DivingForGold]

On the other hand, prepaid credit cards seem to be one of the only ways to prevent merchants from "running up" the charges on a customers account. Sure, a customer can go through the dispute process but it's quite a hassle. Just "limiting the amount of money you place on the table" is quite effective. Giving a merchant your credit card with say a $5,000 or more available balance seems like insanity, like laying out 50 of $100 bills on the table: "here, go ahead, can I trust you to take only what you should" ? I would pay extra to have a VISA or MC credit card that only offers say a $200 limit, just for dubious situations, but again, providers have a "conflict of interest" in that they only make their "cut" when the charges go through, so the more and the larger the charges - - the more "cut" they obtain.

[charcircuit]

A prepaid card doesn't prevent you from being liable for a bill. This is like how leaving your wallet at home when you visit a resteraunt doesn't entitle you to free food because they don't charge you up front.

[Nextgrid]

No but it significantly raises the effort for collecting said money. The company would need to have a strong case (that they need to be able to defend in court if necessary) to do it.

No scummy company relying on dark patterns/etc to charge the customer without their consent will dare potentially airing this dirty laundry in front of a judge.

[charcircuit]

I consider it immoral to dodge paying bills just because you can get away with it. This is like saying it's okay to shoplift because a store may not think it's worth it to go through the legal process to come after you.

[Nextgrid]

I adjust my morals to match those of the entity I'm dealing with. I have no problems "stealing" from a company who is trying to steal money from me by sneaking in unexpected charges.

[DivingForGold]

Nextgrid hit the nail on the head. If you are being an honest customer, but a company is attempting to "blackmail" you into paying bogus or "run up" charges like Google Adwords, which multiple reports indicate they are more than 70% bot generated hits, you can sue them in your local jurisdiction, here we have justice of the peace, small claims, force the big corp to hire local counsel. Do they want to take it higher ? Taunt them with "dumping discovery on them", otherwise known as a far reaching motion for discovery, they'll be forced to deliver a tractor trailer load of paper . . .

With all due respect, historically, the guy with the greenbacks holds the upper hand in any deal. Many abide by the rule: “The customer is always right”.

Internet merchants often with unrealistic low pricing to “bait you” are attempting to sway the balance in their favor by cutting corners, eliminating posting a telephone number answered promptly by a live human being, too often sending out “one way” do-not-reply emails, which is shameful. Recently I encountered a tactic whereby a large corporate health care company would ONLY discuss matters over a phone call, so unless you were recording the conversation (and provide proper legal notice of such at beginning of call) there was no record of the conversation (now internet providers like Spectrum are doing the same). In fact, they were attempting to force me to sign a 30+ page contract full of legalese and “boilerplate” in their doscusign pdf format which coincidentally disallows one from modifying or typing in any disclaimers within the signature line. They refused over multiple communications to respond to several of my questions regarding costs and any future billing. I finally just stonewalled them by saying I would only communicate via email so there would be a written record.

I can regularly obtain a live human on the phone with Amazon and have always received a favorable response - - - obviously Amazon values their reputation. I personally will not do business with any company that fails to provide a telephone number answered promptly by a live human. Often I buy locally from brick and mortar shops with return policies in the event the product doesn't hold up to expectations. The somewhat higher prices I pay at brick and mortar are just “added insurance” that doesn't even compare to the serious disappointment or anger one experiences from some internet purchases where the seller sent a fake or missing GPU card, or the item coming from China has no reasonable cost of shipping it back “hoping” for a refund, or even a US merchant who refuses to honor a valid return. Now that memory prices have exploded, I expect to see even more of these fake or missing GPU shipments from online sellers.

Having been a former cc merchant, I know that any merchant that receives a chargeback will suffer at least a $35 hit, plus more on the time and effort to respond and fight the chargeback, indeed I encourage all buyers to challenge any that we discover dishonest. Merchants getting enough chargebacks will suffer the company providing the merchant account cancelling their business merchant account, often the merchants are are then “blacklisted” in the cc industry.