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How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

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Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#71

Post by ornornor »

noodlesUK wrote: post #67

The blog post he mentions Identity Theft, Credit Reports and You is a really good read that has surfaced on HN a couple times. If you haven’t read it, you should. The notion of simply being an organised professional being the most intimidating thing to bureaucracies is very true in my experience. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

When I moved to Europe, I was VERY surprised to say the least that this doesn’t apply at all here.

The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.”

I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I have tried to complain to the regulator... None of that worked. Most of the time, they basically say something like “kiss my ass”

I don’t know how to deal with EU companies. I was always getting what I wanted in North America by using the organized professional method. I’m at a complete loss in Europe. Any advice?

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#72

Post by swyx »

raz32dust wrote: post #29

How is there no better way to track conversions in a standard way by a third party? This whole win relies on the fact that the affiliate manager let out the real policy. She could have just said that there were no conversions, and the author would basically have no recourse?

this is the real question here. how is the state of affiliate marketing so bad that affiliates have to trust without any means of verification the very people inclined to scam them?

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#73

Post by corty »

ornornor wrote: post #71
noodlesUK wrote: post #67

The blog post he mentions Identity Theft, Credit Reports and You is a really good read that has surfaced on HN a couple times. If you haven’t read it, you should. The notion of simply being an organised professional being the most intimidating thing to bureaucracies is very true in my experience. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

When I moved to Europe, I was VERY surprised to say the least that this doesn’t apply at all here. The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.” I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I…

Sue them for real, or at least have a lawyer write a letter.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#74

Post by greenkey »

I like this post but “unscrupulous merchant” seems harsh for a company that may have changed their policies and didn’t realize they had to inform the referring agent of those changes.

It’s not uncommon for policies to change; that initial marketing spiel for bringing agents aboard doesn’t look like a contract.

The reselling agent probably didn’t have a case here, and the merchant went out of their way to assist when presented with a good argument.

So, this is less about the “unscrupulous merchant” and more a warning to businesses to be clear and contractual with your policy and policy changes in order to avoid PR disasters like this.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#75

Post by faebi »

JakaJancar wrote: post #60

I've probably had 10 such cases in the last 5 years: speeding tickets from countries I have not even driven to, medical services double-billed to both my insurance and credit card, ... all $100-300 range. I'm confident I could probably recover most, but at this amount, I just don't want to deal with it. It's one of those cases where I wish I had a personal assistant. It makes me think there's room for a "consumer deb…

They do exist but only for certain niches. For example in the case of the european air passenger rights. My partner missed a connection flight by a few minutes and had to wait overnight. On the next day she had to take another two stop flight instead of a direct flight. They gave her a hotel, a taxi and a little voucher for food but this wasn’t enough according to her rights.

There are various only services who go to court for you and will get as much money as they can. You go to their website, enter your flight, they calculate the probability that it was the airlines fault , they show you what you maybe can expect, you give them the permission and then they do everything else. The company takes something like 25% comission and that‘s it. It takes a few minutes. In the end she payed 100-200€ for the return flight and got something like 350€ back via the company.

Made me think if one could find the most unreliable flights, with the worst delay in case of a delay and fly them profitably by going to court all the time.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#76

Post by locallost »

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.

Passive income gets mentioned a lot here. He's collected over $100 for previous conversions and about $60 after that, and he'll keep collecting as long as the affiliate program runs. It's not a lot of money in general, but you don't start a keto blog with dreams of billions either.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#77

Post by sandermvanvliet »

colechristensen wrote: post #62
rmason wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I do visit the BBB if I am dealing with a new and unknown merchant before making a purchase. I also do searches with the business and add the words dispute, ripoff and problems. It's amazing what you learn. Now if you don't find anything that doesn't mean there won't be problems. But if you do it's like a flashing red light on the dashboard to back away.

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 factual (like the article talks about) that resolved it. Needless to say the bank wasn’t real helpful so “just use a credit card” doesn’t quite seem to work, at least in my experience. (This was in NL btw, not US)

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#78

Post by ornornor »

corty wrote: post #73
ornornor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I moved to Europe, I was VERY surprised to say the least that this doesn’t apply at all here. The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.” I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I…

Sue them for real, or at least have a lawyer write a letter.

This becomes very time consuming, very fast. Even if the insurance pays the lawyers fees, I still have to setup an apointment, explain the situation again, give the documents, etc.

It's always "small" amounts like 50-500$, i.e. amounts that it sucks throwing out the window but that aren't big enough to justify sinking even more time in chasing.

I also don't believe this can be the only way. Most people don't have legal insurance and wouldn't pay a lawyer the equivalent of 1000$ for a dispute like that.

I'm talking every day stuff: a cellphone bill with an error on it (in the company's favour, always), or an Ikea piece of furniture that was delivered broken (but the package looked fine), or a voucher you were promised if you signed up for a particular health insurance plan and when it's time to get the voucher you're not eligible anymore... That kind of stuff.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#79

Post by bogdanu »

ornornor wrote: post #71
noodlesUK wrote: post #67

The blog post he mentions Identity Theft, Credit Reports and You is a really good read that has surfaced on HN a couple times. If you haven’t read it, you should. The notion of simply being an organised professional being the most intimidating thing to bureaucracies is very true in my experience. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

When I moved to Europe, I was VERY surprised to say the least that this doesn’t apply at all here. The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.” I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I…

It depends on the country, I guess? In Romania the professional attitude combined with mentioning the regulator (or filling a complaint to the regulator) works pretty well for consumer goods.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#80

Post by berdario »

ornornor wrote: post #78
corty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sue them for real, or at least have a lawyer write a letter.

This becomes very time consuming, very fast. Even if the insurance pays the lawyers fees, I still have to setup an apointment, explain the situation again, give the documents, etc. It's always "small" amounts like 50-500$, i.e. amounts that it sucks throwing out the window but that aren't big enough to justify sinking even more time in chasing. I also don't believe this can be the only way. Most people don't have leg…

Isn't that the kind of stuff for which you'd rely on opening a dispute with your credit card provider?
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