It boggles my mind that this is a surprise. Let's start with this:
> What’s really going on here?
Reality. You need to prove something: that the card holder made the purchase to the standard the banks set and you can't. It's as simple as that.
> Why do banks completely ignore the terms customers agreed to when they subscribed or in cases where they’re clearly making false claims?
Because your agreement with the customer is not the only agreement in play. You accepted these chargebacks and that process when you accepted credit cards.
> And why aren’t customers required to provide any proof at all?
You can't prove a negative. I can't prove I didn't authorize payment. And, because it's online, you can't prove I did. "logs, screens, terms, full context" are not proof. None of that is useful or proof in any way that the card holder made the purchase.
> What actually prevents someone from using a SaaS product, filing chargebacks every time they cancel their subscription, and essentially getting refunded for the last several months of usage?
Credit card number limitations. Why would you accept a payment from the same credit card number again? Also, repeat offenders can be blocked by payment providers. This is the way a lot of online stores work.
> Would love to hear your thoughts.
A few more points...
> "The Madness of SaaS Chargebacks"
It's not SaaS chargebacks. It's just chargebacks.
> The worst part is that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose a dispute — the very fact that it was filed still counts against your account.
Yes. The reason it counts is because you are problematic, or at least attract problematic customers. This ends up costing the banks money. I'm sorry, but if you had a problematic customer that cost more money than you made from them, you'd probably stop working with them, too.
> Still, we always submit evidence.
Not the evidence that matters. You need evidence that the card holder authorized the payment. I promise you, nothing you submitted proves that.
> Inside the product, we also provide a simple, self-service way to cancel the subscription without any questions asked.
Do you ask for the username and password? Right... and if I didn't sign up for the service to begin with, I didn't agree to the TOS.
Let's also address one more thing:
Facts:
> Charge was processed August 12 (regular billing cycle).
> Subscription canceled August 18 (6 days later).
> Dispute created August 19.
> The claim is false.
Nope. The problem is when the person requested the subscription be cancelled. Not when your system recognized it.
> the customer doesn’t have to prove anything
The problem is when a customer requests you cancel their subscription, and you say you will, and you don't do it until 6 days later.=
The problem is when a customer goes to request to have their subscription cancelled, and your service is broken and doesn't recognize the cancellation and they don't realize it never cancelled until 6 days later.
I can keep going.
Let's try this: prove to me the customer didn't submit a request to cancel the subscription when they said they did.
That's right, you can't prove a negative.
I can keep going on, but you can find lots of information on this and why it is the way it is. If you don't want to deal with this, there are other options that eliminate or reduce the chance of chargebacks. But you won't find those as popular. Because they aren't customer friendly.