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How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

mtlynch.io

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Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#141

Post by Abimelex »

redelbee wrote: post #136

My summary of this article in terms of good and evil: - Kiss My Keto unsuccessfully tries to set up an affiliate program that doesn’t eat too much margin and is still equitable to the affiliates (I believe they are doing their best to be a force for good until proven otherwise) - Mr. Lynch gets involved and finds out the program he thought he was joining is actually not as it seems, so he reaches out to Kiss My Keto…

Bravo, exactly my thoughts. Also complaining about a conversion rate less than 1% seems pretty weird.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#142

Post by Symbiote »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #123
newdude116 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I fully recommend using it if a vendor is outright refusing to uphold their side of the bargain." What is also very stupid since they don't lose only the money but also very likely a customer.

They aren't that likely to lose each customer. Ryanair targets cheap flights, their customers are those who discriminate on price. In this instance there is even an externality to point to, shifting the blame - even implicitly. It also has to be considered that shrinking their market share is viable if it allows the company to survive.

Depending where the customer lives and wants to go, Ryanair can easily be 2-12 hours faster than the alternatives.

Especially in Eastern Europe, they might be the only airline with direct flights between smaller cities and Western Europe[1]. There's no way I'm choosing Lufthansa and changing flights in Munich if I can go direct with Ryanair and save 3+ hours.

I've wondered if I show up as this type of customer to Ryanair, since there have been a couple of times when it's been within their terms for them to charge me (e.g. slightly overweight luggage, lost boarding pass) and they haven't.

[1] Destinations from London Luton, almost entirely Ryanair and similar budget airlines -- zoom in to ~Slovakia: https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-london-luton-...

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#143

Post by pessimizer »

sverhagen wrote: post #94
hydrogenbonds wrote: post #56

Given how much time you've wasted with this, my feeling is that overall you still lost. They owe you money for the time spent as well. Good on you for publishing this, but you should have mentioned their company name in the title, so that hopefully it show up in search engine results and this alerts others to not collaborate with them.

I looked at it the other way around. For a dispute of $88, to hang this company out to dry on Hacker News (they didn't know that would happen specifically, but still it was a public post), I didn't find very professional. You know, for all that talk about acting as a professional. Oh, well, acting...

If I can rip off 3000 people a year for $88, that's a pretty good living. I wouldn't even have to feel bad about it, because anybody who would complain is unprofessional.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#144

Post by 0xfaded »

aembleton wrote: post #126
0xfaded wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good way to contact an online business directly and say "It seems you pay a 20% affiliate fee. I would like a 20% discount?" Amazon kinda does this with smile and donations, even though I don't use amazon anymore. I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do…

If you're in the UK, then you can use Topcashback [1] or Quidco [2]. Both of these links are affiliate links too, so if you start receiving cashback then I'll get £20. With both of these services, you get to collect the affiliate fee. Some things like insurance are huge and you can easily get £100 for them, most are much smaller. 1. https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/aembleton 2. https://www.quidco.com/raf/23003/

Hmmm, these meta affiliate links have confused my moral compass ;)

Lucky I'm not in the UK :)

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#145

Post by momokoko »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124

I like the article. It presents the way that I believe we should all behave with each other in a professional environment. Respect and Courtesy are important at all times (IMNSHO). Some folks seem to feel that being respectful is a sign of weakness, but cops are extremely respectful, as they explain to you why they will be writing a ticket for an eye-watering amount (at least, good cops are). Many moons ago, when the…

> Respect and Courtesy are important at all times

I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions.

It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#146

Post by gvb »

sandermvanvliet wrote: post #77
colechristensen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s a merchant, just use a credit card. Payment processors don’t like fraud, and it’s one phone call to report a disputed charge. Disputes come out of the merchants pocket and then their rates go up or they are dropped by the processor. You also benefit everyone else by finding and hurting the bad merchant.

I had quite a poor experience with this recently. Found out that there was a recurring charge from a website I had no relation with whatsoever, upon reporting this to my bank the answers were: - Contact the site (I had, got stonewalled) - No we can’t block that - Just block your card and ask for a new one Ultimately I got things resolved and money was paid back by the site because of relentless emailing and keeping f…

What @colechristensen said.

I had a similar experience with a (quite popular but not google) website provider that I had a relationship with and had given them my CC. At some point my account credentials went invalid - I could not do a password recovery no matter what I tried. Since I could not log in, I could not cancel the subscription. I emailed them and got no response. I could not contact "customer service" because I had to log into the site in order to do that.

After two years(!) of charges (charged once a year) and no responses, I got fed up and contested the most recent charge on my CC. I was contacted via email the next day by a customer service representative who was pretty unhappy with the chargeback and threatened me with cancelling my account. Exactly what I wanted - problem solved!

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#147

Post by starfallg »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #35
pjc50 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful, you'll be accused of "cancel culture"!

Cancel culture is when you get canceled about having a different opinion, it has nothing to do with shady business practices.

The phrase "cancel culture" is such meaningless drivel. There are many valid reasons why we don't want to give a platform to certain people because of what they did in the past.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#149

Post by rsp1984 »

momokoko wrote: post #145
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124

I like the article. It presents the way that I believe we should all behave with each other in a professional environment. Respect and Courtesy are important at all times (IMNSHO). Some folks seem to feel that being respectful is a sign of weakness, but cops are extremely respectful, as they explain to you why they will be writing a ticket for an eye-watering amount (at least, good cops are). Many moons ago, when the…

> Respect and Courtesy are important at all times I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions. It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

This. One million times. Politeness is not a signal and generally a terrible proxy to figuring out someone's integrity. While most impolite people also aren't highly ethical in their actions, the reverse (politeness + unethical behavior) is extremely common.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#150

Post by DanBC »

momokoko wrote: post #145
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124

I like the article. It presents the way that I believe we should all behave with each other in a professional environment. Respect and Courtesy are important at all times (IMNSHO). Some folks seem to feel that being respectful is a sign of weakness, but cops are extremely respectful, as they explain to you why they will be writing a ticket for an eye-watering amount (at least, good cops are). Many moons ago, when the…

> Respect and Courtesy are important at all times I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions. It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

> Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

Politeness and respect are important patient safety issues in healthcare. A lack of politeness and respect between a healthcare team causes harm, even death, in patients.

Civility Saves Lives: https://www.civilitysaveslives.com/

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