Barclays stole my money 😡

[BrokenBonesStixStones]

Okay, I am just looking some opinions on this and wondering if it’s even worth my while pushing this any further. If anybody has any suggestions that would be great thank you.

I own a very small e-commerce business and use the Shopify platform, Shopify also manage the card payments etc

Just before Christmas, somebody placed an order and I, in good faith, fulfilled it. It wasn’t an exceptionally large amount, £17, it’s more the principal than anything. This order was not highlighted as high risk

(Shopify will flag any orders that are potentially fraudulent and then It is up to you to investigate and decide whether or not to continue with the order. If you do fulfill the order when it has been flagged high-risk your money for that sale is not protected if a customer opens a chargeback - that’s how it’s described on Shopify anyhow)

After Christmas, the customer opens the chargeback and their bank and Barclays/Shopify withdraw the £17 plus a £10 charge from my account. I appeal and show it has been sent, delivered etc. Their bank denies my appeal.

When I look at the order more closely, I see the delivery address and the billing address are quite a distance apart, so it appears that somebody has used the this persons card fraudulently.

I have contacted Shopify again and they have said the decision lies with Barclays, so if I go to Barclays I have to go in cold because I have no option left to appeal and all I can get is customer contact numbers.

So, AIBU in thinking that it’s not my problem, and I shouldn’t be penalised for it, surely it is the bank or Shopify’s security system that has failed both me and the ‘customer?’

While
£17 won’t make or break the business, the £10 on top is really cheeky imo makes me question what would happen if it was an order for £100 plus.

@Soakitup37 You can rise a chargeback against a fraudulent transaction (unless the chargeback rules have changed) and I've seen fraudulent transactions for pence.

Assuming the chargeback has been raised as an unauthorised transaction, the question here is whether shopify should have flagged it for you to make a decision.

I shouldn't think that you'll get far with a complaint against Barclays as they're acting for their customer. If Shopify have already responded with your evidence and Barclays have refuted it, the only other option is a counter back to them for the chargeback to be arbitrated by the card scheme but that will cost them considerably more than £17.

I presume that's why the OP pays Shopify...so these checks are carried out automatically...as soon as you get any volume of business to manually check this for every order would be unworkable. The OP has already mentioned one of the benefits of Shopify is that it offers to flag potentially fraudulent payments.

This was just before Christmas, so lots of people would have been buying goods to be delivered elsewhere.
From my experience, it's not at all unusual for people to order presents on the spur of the moment, forget about it and be surprised when the charge hits their account.

Not in my experience and I was selling occasionally on eBay from 2003 and stopped a couple of years ago when the situation got really out of hand. A buyer bought an expensive camera and opened a case via PayPal to say he hadn’t received it. I uploaded proof of posting by RM special delivery - even included the signature recorded online as proof of delivery. The buyer refused to acknowledge that it was his signature and that was that. Money was taken from my account and I was bombarded with daily emails from PayPal asking me to add funds to my account as it was in arrears - entirely due to them removing funds to refund the buyer. Another example was a large item of furniture that the buyer came to collect. I had insisted on cash on collection but the buyer went ahead and paid by PayPal. I obtained a signed receipt from the buyer to say he had paid and collected the item. He later opened a case via PayPal to say he had not received the item. Because he had collected it, I had no proof of posting except for the signed receipt, which PayPal refused to accept as proof, so once again I was forced to refund the buyer. Haven’t sold anything since because the system is biased in favour of the buyer.

Chargebacks are a problem. You can block that name/email address from ordering from you again.
Do you have a proof of delivery from the courier?

Do not bank with Barclays. They are the biggest fraudsters and scammers.
They will freeze your account, take all your money, and then close your account, for no reason, or warning, or anything.
Remove all your savings before you wake up to this misery.
Their reconcile policy has stolen £3000 of my disability benefits from DWP, and then just left me to die.
And now I'm attending foodbanks and sleeping without electricity or gas.
Stay away from these criminals.

The customer could be trying it on or it's possibly a courier error and the parcel has been signed by someone else or left at the correct address on the doorstep and then stolen.