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 your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz—the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot—the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

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