The Expert Podcast

So how do you go about getting a refund for a payment that you've made that you want to get back that you don't want to pay in the first place? Refunds are an important way to make sure that you're not out of pocket out money for something that really you shouldn't be that you deserve to have your money. There's many types of refunds there's refunds made to payments made to companies that you want to get back there's there's payments made to some scammer that took your money there's payments made maybe for services that maybe you didn't get or you didn't need or maybe for a product that you've returned so we're going to talk about what are the methods to make sure you get your refund and that you don't do anything accidentally that prevents you and cancels your refund from being issued.

One of the most common ways that people try to get a refund is through what's called a chargeback or dispute where if you paid by credit card you put in a dispute with your credit card company and you say look I want my money back for this payment but a lot of consumers don't know and if you're a merchant we'll talk about what to do on the merchant side of it but a lot of consumers don't know is it's not an automatic refund if you tell your credit card company look I want a refund for this payment they're required by law to immediately credit your card and then go to the merchant to say look this customer is claiming they want their money back for whatever reason only certain reasons get you your money back not just I don't feel like paying you have to have the right reason.

So for that purpose it's very important that you contact the merchant first because one of the questions you'll find when you fill out that refund form or that dispute form is they're going to ask you did you request a refund from the merchant and if you didn't that's going to count against you it's going to go in the Merchant's favor that look the merchant is going to have their side of the story they're going to say wait I sold this product I delivered it I gave it to them this service everything is fine I didn't hear from them and now I get a chargeback and they're going to have a smart Merchant we'll have a response that will try to stick up for their side of the story so make sure you contact the merchant first try to work it out with them because if you don't you might be out your money forever for good.

Make sure that you have a good reason it's not just I don't feel like paying you have to abide by the terms and conditions of that Merchant agreement so look at what you agreed to and what the merchant agreed to do for you and find what is the core reason at heart that you want your money back and make sure you identify it to your bank because if you don't there's a chance that you wouldn't get your money back.

We work with a lot of merchants who genuinely deliver products and services to customers and they have some customers that try to do a dispute or charge back sometimes it's what's called friendly fraud meaning that there's some customers that their whole strategy for discounting their purchases is to buy something and then do a chargeback and try to get free products some Merchants don't even fight back they just let it go through but smart Merchants say no we we delivered a product and service and they have a system and they win 80 percent of the time if you're a merchant that stands behind your product you sell a good service you have things documented and you know how the system works you can win 80 of the chargebacks.

So if you're a consumer card holder that's trying to do a chargeback you might run up against one of these Merchants that doesn't give you stuff for free right they'll work with you if you have a legitimate concern but do that first now if they're an unscrupulous business and just take your money and don't give you a good product or something that wasn't described properly then run your chargeback you have every right to get your money back right but ask the merchant first you'll find out very quickly if they're just on being unreasonable.

So that's a refund what about a refund for something that you sent money for that didn't ever arrive well that's more of a fraud if you paid for a product and it was never shipped and if you did not pay by credit card it's a little more difficult you have to go through a refund process of finding out who actually took your money sometimes these scammers will use fake company names or fake people's names and process your payment cash your check using a fake name you have to identify who it is first then you have to identify what account it's in and then demand and garnish the refund using that identity and again you can check out our website for more details on that or request a consultation about how to do it in your case because every case is a little bit different.

What about a refund for an overpayment what if you're a company and you paid a client or a vendor too much money or even an employee and you've realized afterwards how do you do it well there's another refund Theory that's called the right of set off and the right of set off is a legal term now remember we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice you want to make sure that you get good qualified legal advice for your case we're just giving you some random hypothetical scenarios that you can find more about um on the website tell advice but if you do an overpayment you may be able to set off future payments so here's a strategy that sometimes people will use you paid somebody too much let's say for I don't know maybe you have a business and you get delivery of bottled water to your company every month and you overpaid them and somehow they don't agree with that well you you have your next order that comes and they send you a bill and you underpay them by the same amount you set off your payment or if you're holding assets for somebody maybe you're holding inventory maybe you're holding resources you set off your debt against what you're holding or what your other debts are to them you can even set off against Affiliates or other related companies in the right circumstances again get good legal advice on this but the right of set off is a way that you may already be in possession of some assets that that company owns that you can retain until they resolve your refund.

What if your refund is something that's just a simple dispute between two people maybe you went out to dinner and you split the check four ways and somebody didn't pay their bill or you paid too much and you're trying to get the money from them how do you work with that well that's more diplomatic that's a scenario where you want to start by asking questions and you say well you know obviously we went out to dinner the other night the bill was a hundred dollars everybody was supposed to kick in 25 there were four of us you didn't pay anything because you had no money I covered your 25 what do you think about that don't start with a demand ask them to explain themselves what do you think about that because if you start with the demand what happens is you're putting up a demand and that forces the other person to be defensive they put up their Dukes but if you just start with what do you think about that now you didn't put any controversy you didn't attack you didn't do anything that was accusatory you just asked them to tell you what they think tell me your story by doing that they don't have to defend themselves.

Look many times people will take an unreasonable or unfair position just because they have to defend their pride somebody attacked me well I was gonna pay you but since you were such a jerk about it I'm not paying you well don't be a jerk about it just ask them nicely sometimes it's hard to do because that person's been avoiding you dragging out not taking your text not taking your calls avoiding you at work because they know they owe you 25 bucks so it might be hard for you not to be mad and storm in and say give me my money now they're going to have an excuse not to pay you it's called the fraud triangle somebody can make up an excuse in their mind why you are the bad guy now they can have an excuse not to pay you so disarm that from day one hey what do you think about that what are they going to do now now they're kind of like caught off guard sometimes they'll just say yeah you're right and maybe the fact that you didn't back them into a corner we'll make them just reaching their wallet and give you 25 you didn't back them into a corner they're expecting you to come embarrass them in front of their friends and say something in front of everybody else just say it casually away from anybody else don't put any negative spin on that conversation don't back them into a corner they always use that analogy don't back a dog into a corner because it forces them to attack don't back a person into a corner just say what do you think about that.

Well I think that um you know I'm not sure if I owe that much what do you mean just keep asking questions what do you mean how did you figure don't draw a line in the sand with your opinion even if it's true even if it's serious what do you mean oh I don't think I'll give you the money how do you figure what do you mean well I didn't eat as much food as you oh so what you're saying is you think that you're sure the bill should be smaller yes okay but at the time did we just did we agree just to split it evenly no matter what or do I have that wrong again just keep asking questions look at some point if the if the other person is going to be a jerk now you might have to decide well I'm out the money or you know they're they're just going to use this as a way to do it yelling at them and forcing them is not going to get you your money you have to do it through diplomacy unless you want to go to court over 25 dollars Judge Judy is not going to work so use diplomacy and Jedi Mind Tricks to keep the conversation light again it requires some discipline and in swallowing your pride and ego but that is the price you might have to pay to get the payment resolved and get your refund and then you can make a decision in the future about how you want to handle that person if they've proven that they're not honorable with their promises or not honorable with their debts whether it's a person a company you did business with anybody you can make that decision in the future but for now you want to try to maximize your ability to get your refund get your money back.

Hopefully that's helpful information about how to handle those situations check out our website there's a lot of other suggestions for even more serious situations we have clients that have two or three hundred thousand dollar conflicts that need to be resolved or other types of questions or if it's a simple thing you can find very good historical examples of how these things have been resolved and questions have been answered.