Statement on refunds and friendly fraud

Payop hereby provides an official statement on the refund request, Friendly fraud (also known as payment abuse and/or chargeback abuse) and related activities.

What is the definition of Friendly fraud?

In terms of using Payop and its payment system, Friendly fraud is essentially an attempt to abuse Payop’s payment system. 

 

In such cases the payer claims that certain transaction/transactions executed with their own payment instrument( bank account/card/e-wallet etc) is/are illegitimate, fraudulent or unfair and disputes such transaction/transactions, even when there is no fault from the side of Payop and the transaction/transactions are legitimate and properly executed.  

 

Friendly fraud usually means that the payer is abusing their right to dispute the transaction by initiating irrelevant claims/chargebacks/disputes. Most common examples of such abusive dispute initiation is when the payer makes inquiries which are not relevant to refunds, makes false statements, exaggerates and manipulates certain transaction facts, considering transactions sent to Payop or it’s counterparties, in order to get a refund for provided goods or services from one of the websites using Payop or from Payop, considering that Payop cannot issue any refunds to the payer.


Is Friendly fraud legal?

In most jurisdictions, Friendly fraud is considered a form of fraud. Generallys, fraud is defined as deception, which is intended to result in certain personal and/or financial gains. Considering that the actions of the payers committing Friendly fraud closely match to fraud’s corpus delicti, Friendly fraud may constitute a criminal offense.

Upon revealing a Friendly fraud attempt, Payop reserves the right to block the payer from Payop and restrict further usage of Payop’s payment system among all websites which use Payop.

In case Payop suspects a severe and obvious form of Friendly fraud or any other fraud, Payop may report such cases to the authorities, police and/or consider taking a legal action against payer in cases when there is a significant threat to Payop (e.g. when payer commits defamation against Payop or it’s counterparties etc).

Friendly fraud and “social engineering”

Payop is constantly monitoring online communities, forums and other platforms and is  aware that certain anonymous users of these platforms publicly discuss Friendly fraud/fraud techniques which include drafting templates with various refund irrelevant points and accusations. Such “templates” are subsequently sent to Payop, counterparties and other governmental and non-governmental bodies with extortion threats. 

 

Payop officially acknowledges that Payop’s goal is to safeguard the integrity of merchant services and online payments at any cost and no matter how sophisticated fraudster strategy becomes, it will not help to get any illegitimate refunds/funds from Payop. Payop shall not be defrauded and its reputation shall not fall a victim to fraudsters.

Can Payop refund payers?

No, Payop provides financial services solely for businesses and cannot make any decisions on refunding payers, since Payop is not a final recipient of funds.

Only the website the payer has paid to can make a decision about refund.

Why Payop cannot refund payers?

As stated before, Payop is not a final recipient of the funds, but a financial intermediary. Payop settles all funds to websites accepting Payop and all funds belong solely to the websites accepting Payop.

Only the website the payer has paid to can initiate a refund to the payer at the sole discretion of such a website.

To avoid abusing attempts, Friendly fraud and to protect integrity of merchant services and any financial services involving online payments Payop has zero tolerance to friendly fraud.

Similarly, when the payer sends funds through SWIFT or SEPA or any bank and is allegedly being defrauded, in most cases a financial intermediary is unable to help the payer recover the funds, it is up to enforcement authorities and courts only.

Can Payop help to get a refund from a website accepting Payop?

Not directly.

According to Payop’s procedure, Payop shall contact the website, forward the payer’s complaint and ask them to reach the payer back.

Refunding the payer or not is up to the website’s sole decision, since the website is the final recipient of funds.

Website may choose not to reach the payer back in case their final answer has already been provided.

To save time and resources, Payop always suggests contacting the website directly.

Payop will not be able to make the website issue refunds to the payer and will not act as a middleman between the payer and the website.

What is the role of Payop for the payer then and how Payop may help the payer?

Technically, Payop’s role starts when the payer initiated the payment and ends when the payment is successful. This means only technical status indicating successful payment, but NOT that goods or services were delivered.

Payop does not act as a middleman/guarantor or marketplace and does not guarantee quality of goods or services delivery, for this payer should contact the website they paid to.

What can the payer do to get a refund?

The best and the only way is to contact the website where the payer has paid for goods or services.

In case the payer suspects to be a victim of alleged fraud, payer may also contact police.

What if the payer would like to complain about the website/payer has problems with goods or services delivery?

Payer may complain about the website by email [email protected] in the next format:
– Email used for payment
– Website to which the payment was submitted
– Payment amount and date of payment
– Goods/services purchased
– Detailed description of the problem

Payop shall contact the website and ask to provide the payer with the answer. Payop cannot have influence on subsequent website decision.

Payop may consider taking actions in regards to the merchants based on Payop’s independent investigation and compliance review, however it will not lead to any refunds and/or compensations to the payer since Payop is not the final recipient of the funds.

In cases where Payop terminates the processing of further transactions to the website Payop will not be able to refund the funds already processed.

All complaints about website products, services legality are subject to in depth review of Payop’s compliance team, however they are not considering or handling any refunds, it is out of scope of Payop obligations.

What if the payer wishes to complain about Payop?

Payers may submit the complaint to [email protected] and Payop shall respond during 30 calendar days.

At the same time, according to Payop’s internal policy, Payop is not granting any money compensation, however Payop shall make best effort in case the payer is reaching out to Payop in regards to the technical problem with the payment.