You didn't do about the purchase correctly, at all. But now that it has past, you have two options. 1) Learn from it. Don't continue with the chargeback or try to get your money. It was your fault, your mistake. [As stated before, he could have spend 1k/month on advertising and took it off once you purchased it. You can't prove that he did or didn't, so you don't have much of a case that he was making that amount before the sale.] 2) Proceed with the chargeback and be honest. Don't lie about it saying you didn't authorize the payment. He already lied to you (so you believe), so don't throw lies back. Tell your CC company something else, but be honest. The CC company will be able to do more damage to you than this guy most likely. If it doesn't go through, learn from it. If it does, let him attempt to sue you. As many others have stated, he'll spend the price you paid or more just to show up at court. If a court date is set, show up with his money and hand it to him. [Maybe not you, but you could have a friend make sure he shows up, and if he does...have the friend give him the money. The friend will claim some dude(you) paid him $100 to delivery it.] That is my suggestion.
So because you didn't cover all your bases you are going to do a chargeback on paypal and screw them over too? Have you investigated with the seller what they were doing to get the reveneue, costs and actions?
The problem is without any contract to outline the condition of the sale, you basically bought it as is. It is likely a judge would side with him given the limited facts you have presented. What you have is called buyer's remorse. You didn't do proper due diligence and did not make proper provisions for the sale to protect yourself and it has come back to bite you. I have to agree with others that I would be surprised if the credit card company honored a chargeback unless you lie to them, and then at that point you are committing fraud. Ask yourself if you really want his attorney talking to your credit card company and providing evidence that you are trying to commit fraud. Be straight up with your credit card company and tell them you did not feel you got what you paid for. They are not likely to honor your request, but you never know, and you will be less likely to dig a bigger hole for yourself. Write it off as the cost of learning and move on.
Whatever you do, misleading your CC company will only bring you more trouble. Specially when you have sent them,(the sellers), written notes in emails which proves that you initiated the purchase and also recieved the products. Did the seller provide you any details about the expenses they are doing to promote the site, when they mentioned the $700 revenue? Hope you get this all worked out.
My guess is the person has a relative (mom or dad) that is a lawyer and will do the case for free. The Seller said all traffic sources were organic and did no promotion what so ever. Thank you for the advice.. I will not mislead my cc company and only tell the truth. This is one of the emails the person sent to me:
The lawyer is imaginary, if you ask for his number you won't get one. No chargeback yet, and he already did 'paperwork' and 'background check'? Does he have your SSN and permission to do 'complete background check' on you? And why would he need to do background check if he didn't get a judgement yet? And why is he contacting you directly? What sort of lawyer allows his client contact potential defendant on his own? Sounds like BS to me. I'd do chargeback and forget about this clown.
Well - IMHO no lawyer was advised or providing guidance. The guy wouldn't be talking with you PERIOD if there was! A "chargeback" is a dispute between "banks" the customer's bank & the merchant's bank... when you file for a chargeback your bank takes your claim to their bank, and their bank contacts them. They can dispute the claim, and that is returned to your bank and your bank then decides whether you have a valid claim or not (note: bank is your CC provider and theirs is whomever provided their merchant service.) I would suspect your claim (if any would fall in as a code 30) http://usa.visa.com/download/busine..._risk_management/rules_for_visa_merchants.pdf Services Not Provided or Merchandise Not Received It's worth noting that CC (which all come out of AX) are sticklars for the rules - without a valid authorization slip and a signature the merchant doesn't have a leg to stand on... That said, the merchant can still sue after-the-fact and based on everything noted in this thread - they will likely win a claim... Thus by the letter of CC - you should be able to successfully do a chargeback. By the letter of contract law - you didn't protect yourself in advance and you cannot use ignorance as an excuse in court - thus would expect you will lose. Honest "OPINION" - it sounds like this guy has done this enough to others that the "bluff" works and not serious about court action and doesn't have a clue... clearly he has never been on the receiving end of a chargeback dispute. So would ignore him and talk "ONLY" to your bank as they represent you in this matter... you DO NOT represent yourself (nor does the merchant)... the actual DISPUTE is between banks.
He probably is full of crap Davey, but it is up to you if you want to pursue it. You can certainly call his bluff and tell him you have filed a chargeback without actually doing it, or you can even file one on the simple basis of feeling like he mislead you. It might not stick, but who knows. The guy is being a prick, so that my motivate me to push back a bit. Like I said, though, don't lie to the credit card company, just frame the facts in the most attractive light possible.
Firstly, the cc company may or may not even allow you to do the chargeback. Tell them the situation first, see if they'll allow you to do it. If not, then the point is moot and you're going to have to sue the guy to get your money back anyway. Secondly, he's most likely full of hot air, scammers are quick to bring up their "lawyers" even though they don't have any. If he sues you, you counter-sue and also start a criminal case for fraud (which you probably would want to do anyway). Lastly, does anyone expect a site to sell for 3 months revenue? You should have seen that this was a scam right there. Let that be a lesson to everyone out there.
$700 a month could have been 1 lucky months income. Did he show you more than one nmmonths worth of income? it may vary. but yes, there is a big price difference between $700 and $30. Hope all goes well.
A few things that have and havent been brought up: Have you tried to pursue the case through paypal? They tend to side with the buyers in alot of cases and it'll probably be on his shoulders to prove it, the funds should also be frozen if they havent been removed from the sellers account already. He'll have 30 days to respond, if he does a paypal representative will review the case and if he doesnt (unlikely) then you will automatically win the case. If you dont complete a successful reversal through paypal and just choose to chargeback, a number of things may happen. Firstly you will have your account locked/closed and secondly they may choose to recover the funds you reversed. You have to weigh up whether this one bad apple, however expensive, is worth losing paypal as a payment option. You could possibly end up owing 3k to the seller, paypal and your bank in the worst case scenario. I highly doubt this person has been in any form of contact with a lawyer, im pretty sure its illegal to do a background check on someone without their consent or without prior proceedings in place. Im not a lawyer but I have experienced similiar problems in the past, take the advice as you will.
PayPal doesn't like to get itself involved in virtual complaints. That route likely won't get him anywhere.