- Joined
- Feb 15, 2019
- Messages
- 17
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$220
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User Power: 76%
I have a SaaS business and have luckily not had to deal with any chargebacks. I am very transparent about the service on my website and try to give all necessary information so the customer can truly decide if the offering is right for them or not. When creating the site I paid an attorney to write my policies, most importantly my terms of service. Like many companies I have the standard "by clicking subscribe you agree to the terms of service" blah blah. It specifically states that there are no refunds and that includes non-use. It also states that if there are issues with the service it is the customer's responsibility to contact support and a remedy will be provided in a timely manner.
That being said, I recently ran into a situation where I had a customer subscribe to the service. The customer immediately emailed me stating that they were unable to log in to the system. I immediately checked out the situation and determined that they had not clicked on link in the email confirmation email. I emailed them back right away (which was outside of business hours) and provided instructions on confirming the email and stated that if there were any other issues to please contact us so we could get them up and running. The next day I saw the their email was confirmed. Due to a deficiency in my system I was unable to see whether they had actually logged into the system or not (I have fixed this issue since by adding logging whenever a user logs in...my fault but lesson learned).
I hadn't heard anything from this customer since, but I did notice through analytics and looking at their database records that they had not been using the system. Perhaps they were busy with other things, etc. I'm not a babysitter and whether they use the product or not is not up to them and not me (perhaps this is wrong to think?). I was kind of nervous with their monthly renewal coming up and I had a feeling that there was going to be drama when the renewal fee was charged. The payment went through and as I suspected the next morning there was an email from the customer wondering why they had been charged and that the account was supposed to have been canceled because they were unable to log in. WTF. What an idiot. I wrote back with a standard sorry about your troubles and had we known you were still having issues we would have fixed them immediately. I offered to credit the current month for their trouble (perhaps I am too nice) and gave them the option to either stay on with a free month or have me cancel the account. I figured I would try to save the situation since I am low on customers as it is (not that this person was an ideal customer for web-based software). I get a reply from the customer stating that they spoke with customer service (in broken English) saying they had requested to cancel immediately because they couldn't log in, and that both months should be refunded because they have been unable to use the software. This is total crap because I handle all support requests and related emails. It's not like there are 15 people that deal with this...just me. So I know they are lying to me.
Since I don't have a lot of experience with chargebacks, and I figured that was what was going to happen, I ended up writing a stern email citing the terms of service and the responsibilities of the customer. However, I ended up choosing flight and refunded both monthly fees as a one-time courtesy. This made me feel terrible. Like I just let this person, who completely lied to me, get off easy just so I didn't have to fight a chargeback. I don't know if it would have even come to that, and if it had maybe I could have won.
I am left wondering what I really should have done. I know that these types of decisions are something that only the business owner can decide. I am looking for some feedback on what I can potentially do in the future if this type of situation arises again. I don't like the idea of giving in to liars and scammers, but I have also read about the horror stories of payment processors withholding funding, etc because of situations such as this.
Any input is greatly appreciated.
That being said, I recently ran into a situation where I had a customer subscribe to the service. The customer immediately emailed me stating that they were unable to log in to the system. I immediately checked out the situation and determined that they had not clicked on link in the email confirmation email. I emailed them back right away (which was outside of business hours) and provided instructions on confirming the email and stated that if there were any other issues to please contact us so we could get them up and running. The next day I saw the their email was confirmed. Due to a deficiency in my system I was unable to see whether they had actually logged into the system or not (I have fixed this issue since by adding logging whenever a user logs in...my fault but lesson learned).
I hadn't heard anything from this customer since, but I did notice through analytics and looking at their database records that they had not been using the system. Perhaps they were busy with other things, etc. I'm not a babysitter and whether they use the product or not is not up to them and not me (perhaps this is wrong to think?). I was kind of nervous with their monthly renewal coming up and I had a feeling that there was going to be drama when the renewal fee was charged. The payment went through and as I suspected the next morning there was an email from the customer wondering why they had been charged and that the account was supposed to have been canceled because they were unable to log in. WTF. What an idiot. I wrote back with a standard sorry about your troubles and had we known you were still having issues we would have fixed them immediately. I offered to credit the current month for their trouble (perhaps I am too nice) and gave them the option to either stay on with a free month or have me cancel the account. I figured I would try to save the situation since I am low on customers as it is (not that this person was an ideal customer for web-based software). I get a reply from the customer stating that they spoke with customer service (in broken English) saying they had requested to cancel immediately because they couldn't log in, and that both months should be refunded because they have been unable to use the software. This is total crap because I handle all support requests and related emails. It's not like there are 15 people that deal with this...just me. So I know they are lying to me.
Since I don't have a lot of experience with chargebacks, and I figured that was what was going to happen, I ended up writing a stern email citing the terms of service and the responsibilities of the customer. However, I ended up choosing flight and refunded both monthly fees as a one-time courtesy. This made me feel terrible. Like I just let this person, who completely lied to me, get off easy just so I didn't have to fight a chargeback. I don't know if it would have even come to that, and if it had maybe I could have won.
I am left wondering what I really should have done. I know that these types of decisions are something that only the business owner can decide. I am looking for some feedback on what I can potentially do in the future if this type of situation arises again. I don't like the idea of giving in to liars and scammers, but I have also read about the horror stories of payment processors withholding funding, etc because of situations such as this.
Any input is greatly appreciated.
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