What is a Chargeback and how are they currently handled?
A chargeback is when a customer disputes a charge with their bank.
If a cardholder files a chargeback with their bank, Nightout's policy is to investigate and fight all chargebacks on behalf of the organizer. To do this we communicate with the involved banks, customers or other parties and provide evidence to prove the sale was legitimate.
We’re proud of the strategies we've developed for fighting chargebacks and our rate of winning chargebacks exceeds industry standards and we are always improving.
Even though we do our best to win every claim, some claims are lost and the funds are issued to the customer. In this case you as the organizer are ultimately responsible for covering the losses from the chargebacks, unless you are enrolled in Chargeback Protection.
What does it mean when you tell me the chargeback is “general” or “product not received”?
Please reference Stripe, our merchant processor’s description of dispute categories: https://stripe.com/docs/disputes/categories
Why am I getting a chargeback 3 months after my event?
Customers can dispute a charge on their credit card at any time. So you can experience a chargeback on an event at any time. From the time that we are notified of the dispute, to the time that the bank makes a final decision as to whether we won or lost our case against the dispute, takes around 90 days. This is why you are receiving invoices for lost disputes months after your event. We fight every dispute on behalf of our clients unless otherwise notified to accept the dispute.
How can we win credit card disputes?
We will always submit evidence showing the terms and conditions of your event, the purchase on our site, the email confirmation and whether the tickets were validated. We highly suggest having a refund policy under your purchase conditions that clearly states a no refund all sales final policy that they must agree to before completing their purchase. This helps our case but our best case of winning is when the organization (you) can provide receipts or proof the customer was at your event. Any additional evidence you can provide assists us greatly.
What does NIGHTOUT do to prevent fraud?
NIGHTOUT prevents fraud by using our merchant processor Stripe to process all transactions. Please read about their dispute prevention here: https://stripe.com/docs/disputes/prevention
Can we refund customers if they dispute a charge?
No. We are unable in our merchant processor system to refund a customer once they have started the dispute process. Our options are to fight the dispute (which is our default), and any evidence you can provide is helpful. We can accept the dispute if you prefer, which will require us to collect back from you the cost of that ticket, plus the $15 dispute fee the bank charges us for processing a dispute. We will invoice you for this amount.
Why am I getting disputes?
Occasional credit card chargebacks are unfortunate, but a normal part of e-commerce. We do everything we can to prevent them, but we cannot prevent all chargebacks as some are legitimate purchases, that the customer then wants refunded which is called “friendly fraud”. A chargeback rate of under 1% is considered “good” in card-not-present transactions, and we are currently at 0.27% dispute activity according to our processor, Stripe. If your event is experiencing above average disputes, we suggest instituting some stricter policies (requiring and verifying matching IDs at the event, disabling name changes on tickets, etc). Please talk to your sales representative about further steps you can take to reduce your dispute rate.