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Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

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Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#141

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

DanielDent wrote: post #29

"Friendly fraud" is not a Facebook-invented term. It's a term used and understood by card issuers, acquirers, and merchants. Friendly fraud encompasses: - Dissatisfied customers who don't find refuge in a refund policy/process - Customers who are embarrassed by their purchases. This situation is commonly triggered when a significant other reads a credit card statement. - Customers who spend beyond their means, and th…

Exactly. I think chargebacks are a feedback loop, especially because we have percentages to compare to other businesses. And as the article stated, Facebook’s was 10x the norm.

This was not “friendly fraud.” This was straight up fraud, with clear intention by Facebook employees to defraud parents by using children in a disgusting way as their pawns.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#142

Post by Cu3PO42 »

hyperman1 wrote: post #118
a12432 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMEX is what provides that solution, and fine the merchant as a bonus. It's called disputing a charge. Other cards have the option too, but AMEX will fight for you the most. I've literally had merchants issue a partial refund, disputed the original charge, and ended up with bonus money, multiple times. There is a cost to using credit cards. One of the main reasons to use them is this protection against bad actors, an…

As an European who rarely sees credit cards, I always wonder if this is USA only? How do you dispute a charge? My web banking platform has options for almost everything, but not much credit card related. Do I contact my bank, or do I go straight to VISA?

You can dispute CC charges in Europe as well. All of my cards specify that I should do this as soon as possible, but no later than one year after the charge.

I have never needed a chargeback, but I had a peek at MasterCard's policy just now and it looks like you need to contact the issuing bank. I would assume it works the same for other four-party schemes such as Visa.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#143

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

wl wrote: post #32
DanielDent wrote: post #29

"Friendly fraud" is not a Facebook-invented term. It's a term used and understood by card issuers, acquirers, and merchants. Friendly fraud encompasses: - Dissatisfied customers who don't find refuge in a refund policy/process - Customers who are embarrassed by their purchases. This situation is commonly triggered when a significant other reads a credit card statement. - Customers who spend beyond their means, and th…

> Dissatisfied customers who don't find refuge in a refund policy/process It's dangerous to label such things as fraud. Chargebacks are a consumer protection mechanism of last resort as well as a remedy for unauthorized charges. If a merchant doesn't deliver what they promised and doesn't issue the appropriate refund, the merchant is the one engaging in fraud.

I disagree. Chargebacks are a feedback loop. If you’re taking care of your customers and being transparent about how much and when you charge them, surprise, you won’t have bad chargebacks rates.

If you try to blur that grey area and tilt towards deception (“maybe if we don’t tell them when it auto-renews, our churn will decrease”) then you deserve every single chargeback you get.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#144

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

crysin wrote: post #50
wl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dissatisfied customers who don't find refuge in a refund policy/process It's dangerous to label such things as fraud. Chargebacks are a consumer protection mechanism of last resort as well as a remedy for unauthorized charges. If a merchant doesn't deliver what they promised and doesn't issue the appropriate refund, the merchant is the one engaging in fraud.

Chargebacks are a mechanism that can definitely be abused and in those cases would be fraud. I don't see that as dangerous at all. Heck, in posts on these forums people brag about using chargebacks to cancel services because they didn't want to call or follow the guidelines set by the merchant to cancel an account. Whether they're in the right or not that's most certainly bordering abuse of the system.

I see both sides here, but maybe this is where merchants need to enact stricter rules.

Like services that will gladly let you signup online but then require you call a phone number, with very long wait times and only during certain hours, to cancel. And then be harassed about a cheaper offer while you try to cancel.

I have been a merchant and dealt with erroneous chargebacks, but I have zero sympathy for companies that know exactly what they’re doing — trying to fatigue or confuse the customer into not canceling.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#145

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

npunt wrote: post #113

Note at the time (2011-2012) there was almost assuredly a lot of incentive at FB to look the other way regarding this kind of fraud, since they were preparing to go public (May 2012). When going public you want to get the best price on your IPO, so I imagine the order from higher up was to push revenue higher and look the other way on these types of issues. FB's stock dropped 40% in the months after going public, so…

Yep, I think this just shows how the push for ever increasing revenue creates a disgusting environment.

Almost every single bad Facebook decision can be traced to them trying to cut corners for increased valuation.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#146

Post by miluge »

AlexandrB wrote: post #22
leereeves wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “It doesn’t necessarily look like ‘real’ money to a minor,” This is intentional. In many games, some things cost "gold" earned by playing the game, and others cost "gems" bought with real money. Or maybe "gold" is the one that costs real money. It's designed to be confusing and hide the distinction between in-game points and real money. At some point the game companies should bear some of the responsibility for dec…

> At some point the game companies should bear some of the responsibility for deceiving children. I hope a reckoning is coming in this regard. Many games include mechanics that are hard to distinguish from video slot machines and should be regulated the same way gambling is (rated 18+, audited for "fairness").

Candy Crush is litterally a slot machine on smartphone at least thats how I see it.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#147

Post by miluge »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #140
vezycash wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't privacy.com US only?

According to their website you need either a US checking account or debit card, so for all intents and purposes, yes. If you're in (certain parts of) Europe, Revolut will offer you one-time use virtual debit cards if you're on one of their paid plans. However, I have no personal experience with them. Being limited to one transaction each makes them a lot less interesting in my opinion, since I can't set up my subscri…

You can have a virtual CC ( or more but didnt check ) with Revolut that can be one time use or multiple, its all up to you for how long You want to use it.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#148

Post by AlexandrB »

ben_jones wrote: post #90
endofcapital wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which class at business school is teaching everyone that "If you can get away with it do it! Have zero shame!" because it's probably time to remove that one from the Harvard curriculum.

No, no, no. This isn't taught in college. It's taught in Elementary School when students learn about the world leaders and take two seconds to discover their actual backgrounds and where their power and wealth truly came from. It's learned while watching movies like Wolf of Wall Street where the beautiful protagonist fucks everybody else, living a lavish and perceivable happy lifestyle, before getting "caught" and su…

The fact that people watch Wolf of Wall Street and read it as an example to be emulated is very telling. By the end of the movie he’s in a hateful, bitter relationship, crashing cars into shit because he’s strung out on quaaludes and yet this is called “virtually zero consequences” because the consequences are not coming from an external authority. It’s the substitution of paternalism for morals and money for happiness.

Re: Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents' Credit Cards

#150

Post by u801e »

austincheney wrote: post #104
mindgam3 wrote: post #15

The issue is Facebook denying refund requests after children were suckered in to make large in-game payments using their parents' stored credit cards. It's not just that this whole scenario is slimy. It's that Facebook was fully aware of it, had a nice in-house term for it ("friendly fraud"), and not only chose not to approve refunds but also chose not to implement the most basic measures to prevent it. [edit: as a c…

> not to implement the most basic measures to prevent it. The most basic implement to prevent this behavior is for parents to limit their children's access to Facebook. The consequence for that lack of supervision is spent money. Who should we feel sorry for?

> The most basic implement to prevent this behavior is for parents to limit their children's access to Facebook.

Another one would be not to store payment information on Facebook. Even if my child was able to get onto my facebook account, they wouldn't be able to buy anything because I've never stored my payment information on that service.

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