Joel on Software

Chargebacks

A couple of days ago, tempting fate, I mentioned that our chargeback rate was 0%.

Some people speculated that I was rounding, and really meant, say, 0.45%.

Nope, I really meant zero. None.

As soon as I wrote this, some wise guy decided to dispute a charge.

Now, a long time ago, I wrote some custom software to screen-scrape our credit card processor's online information system, and reconciles the transactions it finds there with QuickBooks, where we do the rest of our bookkeeping.

So today, for the first time in the history of that app running, it finds a chargeback on the statement, and doesn't know what to do with it. So it stops and says, "Unrecognized entry: I don't know what account VISA CHARGEBACK should be posted to."

We had to modify the software.

And that's how I know we've never had a chargeback... until today!

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About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.