I made a claim in the small claims court last year - from making the claim online to receiving payment took 11 weeks.

Admittedly there will always be people who will dodge payment, but at least if you pursue a claim lawfully then both you and your customers will know that you operate your business in a reputable manner. When a company loses its reputation it doesn't have a lot left.

Outing people on the internet may make perfect sense to Matt. Others, like me, would avoid any company that resorted to breaching legislation or underhand tactics to get their own back on a client no matter how justified the company felt.

My own feeling is that much of Matt's anger and frustration is actually about the company's own failures to do sufficient due diligence on this customer.

In a high fraud industry, would you accept a high value order (£840/$1600) from a customer without carefully checking that the customer had a stable address - easily checkable in the UK from electoral records - and a landline telephone (rather than disposable cell phone) at the very least?

I know of one UK essay company that will only take orders from UK, US and Canadian residents and that insists on copies of a customer's driver's license, utility bills, as well as a checkable address and landline before they will even consider taking on the order.

Vigilance pays.

So from one hand you oppose the "personal information" to be revealed to the public; on the other you encourage the companies to take all steps possible to check on the prospective client? Well, in that case I think searching for a person's name online is one of such steps. If I find out the person did an unauthorized chargeback, I don't deal with her. Thank's to Matt's post.

I think Torchwood is saying that companies should be upfront and say what information they need to confirm the identity and permanent address of the client before accepting the order. The client then has the choice whether to provide that information or to use another essay company. Personally, I'd find it too much hassle to deal with a company who needed me to provide copies of all my ID; I would prefer that they just credit checked me through my name and address and called me on my home phone as confirmation.

Major, I don't understand what you mean by an "unauthorized chargeback"? Surely the chargeback was authorized by the credit card company? I didn't think that essay companies got the choice whether to authorize a chargeback. I was under the impression that a chargeback was imposed on the essay company by the card company unless the disputed transaction was resolved by other means.

I think we should remember in this thread that we only have one side of the story. It is possible that the customer in this case had a legitimate reason for disputing the transaction.

You are an angry person, and you just don't get it.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. Good luck attracting customers with revenge as your promo.

I oppose UK registered companies revealing personal information when they are acting in breach of the UK data protection act. I don't believe that individuals or organizations should get to decide which legislation they will comply with and which they won't. That is anarchy.

As I understand it, the client has never complained about the service. Yet she did a chargeback.

If a "normal" customer has a problem with a product or service she first should contact the company to possibly resolve the problem, shouldn't she? Her not contacting the company proves her ill intentions.

I don't think that there is any proof of anything in this debate. Just opinions based on partial information.

We've been told that the chargeback was authorized because the cardholder was not present. In the UK, the banks have been reported in the press as saying that the majority of 'cardholder not present' frauds are due to the theft of information (discarded receipts, intercepted mail etc). We are also told that this person was using a mobile phone and a free-mail address. To me, this sounds more like a case of identity theft than someone using their own credit card and scamming an essay company. I could be wrong though.

If the person whose credit card was used did not order the paper and did not authorize someone else to use their card then they have every right to dispute the transaction and are under no obligation to get involved in discussions with the company concerned.

I have some sympathies with the company as they are out of pocket, but I don't think that they are handling themselves very well - although this is understandable if they are new in the market and this is the first time they've been hit. It's a shame because if it is the same Matt Pledger that went to Thames Valley Uni then he's an okay guy. I just think he's ill-advised to take this tack, but I doubt that he cares what I think.

When you buy something online, it is not possible to "have the cardholder present," isn't it. In 2006 people spent $211 billion online. Does it mean the transactions for, let's say $100 billion [the majority], were due to the theft of information?

I've no idea what proportion of the total transactions online globally was legitimate and what proportion was fraudulent due to identity theft.

You said:

My point is that there is no proof here. We don't know if the cardholder did scam this company or whether the cardholder was herself scammed.

I was referring to this:

the banks have been reported in the press as saying that the majority of 'cardholder not present' frauds are due to the theft of information

Since ALL online transactions are classified as 'cardholder not present' it suggest that transactions for over $100 billion could be fraudulent.

I guess, maybe Matt could specify what was the exact reason of the chargeback.

It might have suggested that if I'd said "cardholder not present transactions" but I didn't. I said "cardholder not present frauds" which is not the same thing at all.