Support:Chargebacks

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Have you been charged back by a user on your panel? This page will tell you about how chargebacks happen and what you can do to deter - if not prevent - them.

What is a chargeback? How does it happen?

Chargebacks are quite simply the description of what happens when a user who has made a purchase on your Prometheus installation contacts PayPal or their bank in order to request that the funds they transferred was a transaction not done by them or was one that was never delivered. And while this is an excellent method for when you've been scammed on Craigslist or a with a shady iPhone case seller, it is a double edged sword as it means that you lose all of the funds for a service that was received.

And while there is nothing that you can do to stop chargebacks from happening, there are methods you can take on Prometheus after a user has chargebacked in order to prevent them from being able to do it again.

Why are chargebacks detrimental to my business/server?

Every transaction made via PayPal incurs a 3.9% fee. This is why when a user makes a $2 transaction via PayPal, you only get $1.92 sent to your PayPal. However, when a user chargebacks, you lose any of the funds that were given to your account, plus the 3.9% transaction fee by PayPal. And there's nothing you can do to prevent it, even if they're using the PayPal Resolution Center.

How do I detect a chargeback?

You can find any chargebacks fairly easy on your PayPal activity dashboard. Prometheus also has a way to automatically detect when a chargeback has occured and will automatically remove the user's package from their account. You can find any records of chargebacks made on your Prometheus installation from the logs tab of your admin dashboard. You can find that typically a chargeback will look similar to this on PayPal:

Chargeback.png

I've been chargebacked! What do I do now?

If you've been chargebacked for a purchase made on Prometheus, you have full control over what you can do with the user. Here's some common steps other administrators take when they've been chargebacked that we recommend:

  1. Blacklist the user from being able to buy any more packages on your server. You can do this by visiting your Prometheus admin panel, clicking on the Users navigation tab, and then clicking on View Blacklist. Then, in the bar at the top, enter the chargebacking user's SteamID or Steam Community ID and click Submit. The user will no longer be able to buy any further packages.
  2. Ban the user from your server(s). While this is optional, it helps deter users from wanting to do any more chargebacks for fear of being banned. You can clearly state on your Terms of Service page that if you chargeback you will be banned.
  3. Contact PayPal support. If you believe that the same user is continuously charging back you in order to make you pay a large number of fees, you can contact PayPal support and tell them that Purchase Protection is not eligible as you are running a digital service and what the user is doing. With some experiences PayPal will even reimburse any fees you encountered.

Obviously, your policy is entirely your policy, but these steps should give you an idea of what to do. While you may not be able to prevent chargebacks, you can at least remedy them.