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Why I'll never use Affirm again

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Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#241

Post by uoaei »

tehlike wrote: post #229
chernevik wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope he doesn't. It sounds like your customer service is the usual cost-minimization nightmare, and I don't see how fixing this one case will make it any better. Companies like yours make it hard for customers to reach capable representatives and routinely break service promises. Because hey! who cares if we have treated people decently? it has nothing to do with the business model. There must be dozens of ways to…

You should notice that a CEO may not necessarily be aware of everything going on, and cases like this might trigger a deeper look on his side. Whether affirm has this kind of issues as a pattern or not, i don't know. But assuming malintent is not a great pov imho.

> a CEO may not necessarily be aware of everything going on

"Everything" in the micro sense, sure. "Everything" in the macro sense, well, that's literally the job description of CEO, so it sounds like you think the CEO does not deserve criticism. If customer service is not working to the benefit of customers, I'd say that's something a CEO should already be aware of and represents a lack in organizational awareness, which compromises executive duties.

Just because the job is hard doesn't mean we should give anyone a break. Assuming the role and responsibilities of CEO is completely voluntary.

I don't think anyone is assuming malice; intent has nothing to do with this. The outcome of each interaction is only what matters here.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#242

Post by shmoogy »

michaelmrose wrote: post #240
mlevchin-affirm wrote: post #198

Hi, I am the CEO at Affirm. I am sorry for the bad experience you appear to have had with our customer support — it is certainly not what we strive for. Please email me at max.levchin @ affirm.com with either the transaction ID or the email address you used to register, and I will track down exactly what happened here. I realize you may not care at this point, but I’d greatly appreciate it, as it will help us prevent…

It is great that you are trying to help but a customer support situation where there is no actual recourse but complaining on hacker news can't possibly scale and while functional orgs absolutely DO drop the ball sometimes they don't drop the ball repeatedly. From my experience something like this not getting escalated and then escalated again until somebody can handle it is that the system process is broken. In othe…

Bringing the attention of a systematic failure/issue to a CEO that may be caused by policies that force KPIs internally that lead to frustrating encounters is the best way to resolve these kinds of issues.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#243

Post by michaelmrose »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #239
aunty_helen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and they were unresponsive to my requests for a shipping date There wasn’t an issue with Affirm not paying the money onward, why go to them. Once again, Affirm have agreed to give credit to this company, that relationship is theirs. If their client isn’t fulfilling their duties it’s Affirms problem too. Credit cards work like this, you pay your 2-4% fee and you’re guaranteed what you expected to receive. Hence why…

> If their client isn’t fulfilling their duties it’s Affirms problem too. Again, they didn't even know there was a problem because the author never brought it to their attention before the chargeback. The author borrowed money from Affirm and agreed to pay it back. He's in breach of his contract with Affirm, over a dispute with the merchant (a different party).

They make their money by acting as an integrated intermediary. They didn't borrow money separately and then use that money to buy an item. They borrowed as an integrated step in the purchase interface.

By acting as the intermediary they are the only party that received the posters money and ergo the only and appropriate party to claw the money back from. This is no different from buying a widget on amazon. Failing to receive the widget. Initiating a chargeback for the money.

Regardless of whether amazon was actually responsible for providing the widget they received your money and ergo they are responsible for giving it back.

Indeed its not really any different from a direct retail purchase where you buy a box and if you open the box and instead of nice new widget you find one that looks like it was mauled by a bear. Can you imagine going to the returns counter and being told despite paying us your money at our point of sale you need to fly to china and sue them if you want your money back. It's just not how the universe works.

They most likely actually CAN'T take money and deliver nothing and make it someone else's problem if they both want to do business in the US and keep doing business with credit card issuers here.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#244

Post by michaelmrose »

kube-system wrote: post #218
harles wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, I can’t believe all the comments blaming OP. It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms, not OP. Charge backs also have a limited window to claim - I can’t see anything that was done wrong here by OP. Yes, OP could’ve attempted to resolve with affirm up front, but why should that be necessary?

> It was clearly the retailer in breach of Affirm’s terms Yes, and that's why the payment to the retailer should have been the one in dispute, not the loan payment to Affirm. This is how it always works when you finance through a third party... it works the same way for a car loan, a mortgage, a credit card, etc.

How do you dispute a charge that took place between Affirm and the delinquent merchant? Affirm has your money. Affirms partner hasn't delivered on your merchandise. Affirm by being the one in possession of your money for which you have received nothing is the one in breach of your agreement and has no power to enforce terms for an agreement it has violated.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#245

Post by michaelmrose »

shmoogy wrote: post #242
michaelmrose wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great that you are trying to help but a customer support situation where there is no actual recourse but complaining on hacker news can't possibly scale and while functional orgs absolutely DO drop the ball sometimes they don't drop the ball repeatedly. From my experience something like this not getting escalated and then escalated again until somebody can handle it is that the system process is broken. In othe…

Bringing the attention of a systematic failure/issue to a CEO that may be caused by policies that force KPIs internally that lead to frustrating encounters is the best way to resolve these kinds of issues.

I have never seen the CEO of any organization I've ever worked for fix anything of note even company or life threatening situations unless it was actually to the point of threatening the immediate existence of cash flows right away as in this quarter. Honestly anyone who expects Affirm to fix an issue where a fraction of 1% of users are fucked and 99% are OK is dreaming. All it would have to do to negative the benefit of such is for it to increase costs by 1%

The smart folks reading this thread have just learned that its wise not to do business with affirm because its not worth the hassle.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#247

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

michaelmrose wrote: post #243
jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If their client isn’t fulfilling their duties it’s Affirms problem too. Again, they didn't even know there was a problem because the author never brought it to their attention before the chargeback. The author borrowed money from Affirm and agreed to pay it back. He's in breach of his contract with Affirm, over a dispute with the merchant (a different party).

They make their money by acting as an integrated intermediary. They didn't borrow money separately and then use that money to buy an item. They borrowed as an integrated step in the purchase interface. By acting as the intermediary they are the only party that received the posters money and ergo the only and appropriate party to claw the money back from. This is no different from buying a widget on amazon. Failing to…

This isn't a good analogy. A retailer is responsible for giving you what you ordered (a nice new widget) because you are literally buying it from them. In this case, Affirm isn't fulfilling the purchase at all.

I think a better analogy would be you bought a house, but you find out later the seller lied about something (maybe they didn't install a new roof like they claimed), so you think the best course of action is to stop making mortgage payments to your bank.

> Regardless of whether amazon was actually responsible for providing the widget they received your money and ergo they are responsible for giving it back.

Yeah, after you request a refund from them. Try issuing a chargeback to Amazon next time you buy something from a 3rd party seller, I think you will have a bad time.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#248

Post by wildrhythms »

xiphias2 wrote: post #217
lvl102 wrote: post #212

All these SV fintechs are horrible at customer service. At the very top of that list is Paypal and SoFi. If you want to be in a consumer facing business, we need to force these guys to have min level customer service staff based on number of accounts.

The alternative to horrible customer service is not servicing poor customers. Traditional banks choose that solution. I'm not saying one is better than the other though.

Other times the customer service is designed to be horrible. For example- allowing customers to create an account online, then requiring customers to call over the telephone to close the account (my ISP does this). Very annoying to sit in a phone queue for 20-30 minutes when I should be able to simply click a button that says "Close account." If I was president I would make it criminal.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#250

Post by wildrhythms »

avianlyric wrote: post #103
BackBlast wrote: post #38

One point not brought up is that Chase may not be an honest broker here. I've seen both sides of a "charge back" that had the bank lying to both parties while soaking up a bunch of fees. Telling the customer that it had been resolved in the company's favor while telling the company that it had been resolved in the customer's favor. Taking both the funds and fees for themselves. Affirm might well be correct that the b…

Chargebacks don’t work the way people think they work. Under the hood raising a chargeback means your bank send the acquiring bank a message (with an exponent and evidence) that immediately reverts the original transaction and transfers money from the acquirer to the customers bank. The merchant via the acquirer can then issue a message that does the opposite, again with an explanation and evidence. Eventually the ca…

This was very enlightening, thank you. Is there anywhere I can learn more about this horrifying process?
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