Poke Vault, one of YouTube’s more popular Pokemon content creators, published a video discussing how they were recently scammed by Cody, a customer. Cody purchased thousands of dollars of Pokemon product from Poke Vault’s online store. Upon receiving his purchase, Cody contacted his credit card company and filed a chargeback.
After receiving the chargeback request, the Cody’s credit card bank took that money from Poke Vault and gave it back to him.
My Background in The Credit Card Industry
I worked for First Data, now called Fiserv, a major credit card processor. for many years. I was a Senior Contact Center Technical Specialist in their Internet Solutions department. One of my duties was to assist merchants using an online tool for managing chargebacks. After leaving First Data, I started a freelance web developer business specializing in e-commerce. I created and sold a WordPress plugin for accepting credit card payments on any WordPress powered website. I also installed and integrated WooCommerce, a popular e-commerce system for use with WordPress.
Because of my background in the credit card processing industry, I watched Poke Vault’s video with great interest.
How Chargebacks Work
Something to keep in mind is that any cardholder can request a chargeback on any transaction. That does not mean the cardholder’s issuing bank will ultimately approve the chargeback.
When a chargeback is initiated, the cardholder’s credit card company temporarily returns the funds back to the cardholder. If after conducting an investigation, examining evidence presented by both the cardholder and the merchant, the funds remain with the cardholder if the case goes in their favor. The funds go back to the merchant if the case goes in their favor.
People seem to think that as soon as a cardholder files a chargeback, they won and the merchant lost. After all, the funds were removed from the merchant’s account and given back to the cardholder, right? Even though it might seem that way, this is not the case.
When Does a Chargeback Automatically Go Against the Merchant?
The cardholder’s credit card company will automatically decide in favor of the cardholder if the merchant fails to respond to the chargeback within the allotted time. Merchants fail to respond to chargebacks all the time. It happens a lot. Usually they claim not knowing a customer filed a chargeback, so they didn’t know they needed to do anything. This is more common with retail point of sale merchants than with e-commerce merchants. Merchants who sell online have shopping cart software such as Shopify or WooCommerce that alerts them if and when there is a chargeback.
Cody requested the chargeback because he claimed the product was unacceptable. That can mean when they opened the package, instead of finding what they paid for, they found something else. Rocks, dirty socks, juice boxes, etc.
In this specific case, the online Pokémon collecting community knows this is a lie. That’s because another YouTuber came forward and admitted to buying the products Poke Vault sent to Cody. The same products Cody told his credit card company were unacceptable. Cody sold them to VIPokemon, another Pokémon YouTuber.
In Conclusion
Other YouTubers have come forward and shared a similar experience with Cody. The longer I’m in the Pokémon hobby, the more I learn the community has a substantial amount of unethical dirtbags within its ranks. Much more so than the other collecting hobbies I participate in.
