- Kiss My Keto unsuccessfully tries to set up an affiliate program that doesn’t eat too much margin and is still equitable to the affiliates (I believe they are doing their best to be a force for good until proven otherwise)
- Mr. Lynch gets involved and finds out the program he thought he was joining is actually not as it seems, so he reaches out to Kiss My Keto to resolve things equitably (again, I believe people are doing their best to be a force for good until proven otherwise)
- Kiss My Keto initially balks but then realizes they weren’t being fair and does everything they can to resolve the problem (still a force for good)
- Mr. Lynch then publicly blogs about the issue from a one-sided perspective and paints an unflattering image of Kiss My Keto. He also drafts hard on someone who actually writes useful content instead of creating something useful on his own (now he’s a force for evil)
- Mr. Lynch also uses the blog as an opportunity to sell a course about how to get to the front page of HN while appealing to his authority on the matter since he has written articles that made it to the front page 17 times (more evil territory)
If this is what it takes to get to the front page of HN maybe I should spend way less time here. This guy wasted everyone’s time with bad intentions.
He could have legitimately wanted to help Kiss My Keto, which would have strengthened their relationship and potentially led to gains for both parties. Instead he wasted their time for a completely insignificant payoff. Seriously, if your site is getting 100k visits a month and you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for $88 you are doing something wrong or evil. Then he tells everyone else the story and makes himself the hero and Kiss My Keto the villain. That’s what they got for their seemingly good intentions and $88. So evil on Mr. Lynch’s part.
He could have thought of his own framework instead of drafting off Patrick McKenzie‘s ideas and twisting them to fit his selfish goals. Instead he practiced a bit of intellectual thievery and didn’t even further the discussion by adding anything useful. Evil again.
He could have made this story valuable to readers by giving us tools to live a better life, like Patrick McKenzie did with his article. Instead he extorts us for money to learn his “proven” process for gaming his way onto the front page despite having nothing useful to say and wasting everyone’s time. Major evil.
To be clear, I want more good in the world and less evil. If everyone acted like this guy the world would be terrible. Don’t be like this guy.
Am I missing something? Why did this make it to the front page and why do people seem to actually like this article and find it useful? Are we all that terrible?
-Mr. Lynch advertises for KMK on a site that he has poured many hours of work and creativity into over the years. Mr. Lynch does this based on an agreement, that, in fact, relies heavily on the merchants honest reporting of sales, a metric Mr. Lynch, does not have on his own. The balance of power in this relationship is strongly favoring KMK.
-Mr. Lynch learns that KMK is not, in fact, honoring its contract, this he learns from a small admission from KMK. The balance of power shifts slightly in favor of Mr. Lynch.
-Mr. Lynch reaches out to CEO of KMK, who effectively tells Mr. Lynch to pound sand. Escalating the conflict, and retaining position in balance of power.
-Mr. Lynch continues pressing CEO, threatening losses that a reasonable CEO would not want to incur, as well as the guarantee that this cheap problem will continue to consume the bread maker-CEOs time. KMK, in a moment of clarity signals that it is open to alternative solutions without admitting fault, by effectively posing the question, ‘What do hope to accomplish?’. Balance of power is basically equal at this point.
-Mr. Lynch and KMK CEO settle on $88 to make Mr. Lynch whole. Both are mutually satisfied to never conduct business together again. At this point Balance of power is now strongly in favor of Mr. Lynch, as he has recuperated the $88, but more effectively, he has won the conflict. Using the leverage that was ironically what KMK valued most as an affiliate partner, he nukes the bridge he just crossed as a demonstration of force, but more importantly send a message to the market, ‘you don’t screw over your affiliate partners’.
Some may say it was twisting the blade a little too much, some may say it was in bad taste. I say it was Sherman-esque; harsh, but necessary, so long as he didn’t take obvious pleasure in his brutality.
Extorts whom for money?
> "To be clear, I want more good in the world and less evil. "
That's great. You and I have common ground.
In my experience, dividing the world into good and evil is likely to increase negativity and evil. Embracing the shades of gray, understanding nuance or being brave enough to say "I do not have enough information about this very serious urgent issue to determine the correct moral path" usually increases good.
In my opinion, your instinct to suspect Kiss My Keto could be merely misunderstood is a good and generous one. Personally, I think it's misguided, but I'd hear you out. But to then go on to ascribe actual evil motives to the blogger is, ironically, increasing evil.
Maybe, as a company, it's a bad idea to rip people off for $88. Turns out that people who have to fight you for trivial amounts of money aren't motivated to either repair the relationship or improve your company. The only people motivated to make a big deal about it are people who can figure out an angle that makes it profitable for them.
Is there no difference between good and bad things? Aggressive marketing is annoying, not a moral failure. With some people, exploiting being a victim for personal benefit can be rationalized as worse than victimizing people. It's like a killer being angry that a relative of their victim writes books about the crime. "Where's my share?"
In terms of good and evil:
- Kiss My Keto set up an affiliate program. (morally neutral)
- Mr. Lynch joins that affiliate program. (morally neutral)
- Kiss My Keto has changed that affiliate program to exclude their primary product. (morally neutral)
- Kiss My Keto doesn't inform its affiliates of that change, or update the information on the website of that change. (morally bad)
- Kiss My Keto asks affiliates to share holiday promotion codes in order to "boost earnings," yet has a policy that refuses to pay referrals who use holiday promotion codes (morally bad)
- Kiss My Keto also offers promotion codes in pop-ups to people referred to its site, and if any of these promotion codes are used, they refuse to pay for the referral. They also do not mention this in any material they share with their affiliates (morally bad)
- Mr. Lynch notices that Kiss My Keto has effectively created an referral network that doesn't pay for referrals, and doesn't tell its affiliates that it doesn't pay for referrals. (morally neutral)
- Mr. Lynch spends weeks in an email exchange being ignored and argued with, until someone at Kiss My Keto notices that they are dealing with a loudmouth, updates their website terms, and starts paying for referrals. (morally neutral)
- Mr. Lynch blogs about it, and ties it in to a product that he's selling. (morally neutral)
What's not included:
- Mr. Lynch deceitfully fails to blog about the interaction from Kiss My Keto's perspective, completely fails to make an effort to preserve the image of Kiss My Keto in that blog, and viciously includes a reference to a different blog (that describes the approach he was taking in this dispute) rather than making up an original framework for dealing with disputes in general. (obviously destroying the world with his evil.)
Dumb article.
The article is all over the olace and buried near the end is the book he got the 'solution' from.
A correct title would be 'how book' X' helped me recover funds'
But that wouldn't earn him mlre affiliate spam. Get bent dude.
>The article is just more affiliate spam
There are no affiliate links in this article. I link to a writing course I teach, but that's not an affiliate link, as I'm selling my own product.
>buried near the end is the book he got the 'solution' from.
>A correct title would be 'how book' X' helped me recover funds'
The link is to a blog post[0] that I discuss heavily in the beginning of the article.[1]
[0] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...
[1] https://mtlynch.io/collect-debt/#handling-bad-behavior-with-...
Yeah, that was my initial thought too, but thinking about it more, I understand why that doesn't exist.
Merchants are the ones paying the affiliate platforms, so the affiliate platforms don't have incentive to create features designed to increase power of the affiliates at the expense of the merchant.
Affiliates in this space don't seem to be very discriminating. The only communities I've found for keto affiliate marketers are the groups run by the merchants themselves, so it's not like they're searching for information about which merchants are honest or not. I think the general trend is to try a merchant, monitor how much they pay you, then move on if the dollar amount is too low.
I adopted a mantra of "remain professional", avoiding engaging with their emotional tantrum and escalating the situation, just sticking to the facts and explaining the situation to them and what needs to happen to reach a resolution.
It's hard, because people get emotional, and you have to force yourself to detach from them attacking the thing you have built and want to defend and instead become very objective, robotic in nature, but it works.
It's not for the light hearted but sometimes this is what it takes to get paid.
Well, the author could have used one affiliate link to visit Kiss My Keto and make a purchase. That way, he would have had proof that at least ONE converted.
The most important part of this article is that the author was right and had proof. The way in which he conducted himself was likely inconsequential but writing an article about being a dick and getting what you want won’t generate clicks.
Too bad as well, affiliate programs could be a much better way to monetize than advertising revenue.
This make it very valuable to me. Resolving disputes can quickly become stressful, especially when as an engineer you rarely have to do so with customers.
He also invoked the “professional” archetype.
> “Angry people demand; professionals ‘require.’”
Also, if a company tries to give me that run around once, why would I ever bother repping their products ever again? Also...it was $80. I do realize it can buy a decent amount of stuff but the amount of work and time this guy spent writing emails about this, he would've been better off black listing them.
Don't make enemies over $88!
If it was $88k, then I'd treat it differently... Or if it was 1000 customers who have copy pasted the same email hoping to collect $88...
Well there goes your leverage. Is this common in the content game?
I've never known an affiliate system to have independently verified stats. Whether you're an affiliate for a small business or Amazon, they control the stats and you just have to accept what they say they owe you.
That data also comes from the vendor, so it's only as correct as the vendor wants it to be. Affiliates are always at the mercy of their vendors.
This one mentioned in the article is one of the best blog posts ever written, IMHO. I re-discover and re-read it every ~2 years.
It’s not uncommon for policies to change; that initial marketing spiel for bringing agents aboard doesn’t look like a contract.
The reselling agent probably didn’t have a case here, and the merchant went out of their way to assist when presented with a good argument.
So, this is less about the “unscrupulous merchant” and more a warning to businesses to be clear and contractual with your policy and policy changes in order to avoid PR disasters like this.
Edit: extra carbs I mean. Getting my diets confused here.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling...
It seems their chicken is a chicken-soy-mix. At least taste and texture are that way
>I like this post but “unscrupulous merchant” seems harsh for a company that may have changed their policies and didn’t realize they had to inform the referring agent of those changes.
Even giving them an extremely generous benefit of the doubt, I can't think of a way to describe them as anything better than "unscrupulous."
If it truly was an honest mistake that they forgot to tell affiliates they changed policies, their reaction upon finding out should have been, "Oh wow! Thanks for telling us! We owe hundreds of people money, so we'd better review our transactions and pay everyone what they're owed." But instead, they (as far as I know) only paid me and never informed any of the other affiliates.
Also bear in mind, that you can't just "forget" to tell people that you changed the terms of your business relationship with them. If I hired hundreds of employees by advertising a $20/hr wage, I can't just privately decide that their pay is lower and secretly reduce their paychecks until one of them notices.
In the US, admitting you did something wrong could open you up to a class action suit where some customers could be eligible for damages due to negligence.
You and others assume the merchant is unscrupulous, but they provided a remedy, so when you then called them out on it and gave them bad PR, you’ve given less incentive for other businesses to provide even that.
You could’ve written your post without specifically mentioning the merchant’s name, if your intent were really only to help others.
Even worse, if the merchant were unscrupulous and your aim were revenge, if it were to turn out that the merchant gets more business because of the PR around your stunt, they might tell other unscrupulous merchants that they should not pay their agents and hope for a windfall from rewarding only one of them with their due.
I cannot read that scheme and not agree with “unscrupulous merchant” as a apt description of the company
Presumably the law varies depending on country, but in the UK you're absolutely obliged to inform any involved parties of substantial changes to the terms of any agreement you have with them. Deciding not to pay commission to affiliates on a flagship product is a pretty big change, if I was an affiliate I'd definitely want to know about it so I could reconsider my position.
But then sending out discount codes to affiliates explicitly saying, "Boost your sales by giving out these codes!" Then to exclude those purchases from the affiliate program? I mean, come on. Where do you draw the line? Because that's definitely crossed out of my "innocent mistake" threshold.
> In the US, admitting you did something wrong could open you up to a class action suit where some customers could be eligible for damages due to negligence.
This is not a customer relationship, it's a business one. Presumably with some sort of written agreement. Violating that agreement or their own advertising around that agreement is what is going to get them in trouble, not an admission of fault. Besides, paying the author as they did could be submitted to a court as an admission of fault anyway. (That's why real settlements come with an NDA and explicit written agreement that fault was not assigned.)
> You could’ve written your post without specifically mentioning the merchant’s name, if your intent were really only to help others.
I think calling out the merchant is helping others, specifically others in or thinking of joining their affiliate program.
The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always resolve reasonable misunderstandings in their favor. A single good affiliate can make your business. A bad reputation will destroy it.
There are third party affiliate software systems that can help with trust, but they are all terrible. Nothing substitutes for just being trustworthy. This post is probably going to be top news in the "keto affiliate community" (which, even without checking, I already know to be a thing) and it will be a problem.
I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do this I usually feel like I'm supporting the online store, but there are some cases (e.g. I'm looking for an oversized mattress) where I know the whole industry is corrupt and I just want to pay as little rent as possible.
You didn’t do any of that. You are just a customer at best and don’t provide any additional value on top of the money you pay for the product. Charging less then is just the company shorting itself for a single customer.
You trying to cut them out. I don't think it's in the sites best interest to offer people like you (cookie killers),a discount. If the affilates find out and they feel cheated they will move on.
Remember the affilate never gives one person at 20% (if they do they never hit their minimum) they give dozen/hundreds/thousands of customers.
With both of these services, you get to collect the affiliate fee. Some things like insurance are huge and you can easily get £100 for them, most are much smaller.
Keep in mind though that affiliate programs are not necessarily sleazy. By default nobody knows about your product. Some of our partners have been making tutorials in other languages and building API integrations into their products. They deserve the money we send them.
If you're trying to get professional affiliates to market your business, sure, use third party software. Most the affiliates know the systems already and have some level of trust in it. Plus the software will provide analytics, payouts to various countries, tax guidance, etc.
Our program is primarily a referral program for existing customers. There's no separate affiliate account and credits automatically offset the fees we charge. Plus I like Stripe and don't want a bunch of third-party PHP crapware invading our already complex billing system. DIY was really the only option.
The things that make our customers want to refer others are not necessarily what will work for anyone else. Our current referral system would never fly with the porn affiliates, but also an impersonal "make $ fast!" affiliate system would never resonate with our customers.
A basic referral tracking system is super easy. Give users links they can share; clicking on the link puts a value in local storage; pass that value along with signups. Offer something meaningful to new customers who come in through a referral (for us, it's a discounted first month). If you're just trying to increase word of mouth spread, that's enough to get started.
Obviously I’m not getting the exposure of shareasale, impact, etc from being on their platform, but I can still sign up for them once I’ve validated that affiliate works for high ticket item hardware.
The whole long story behind the dispute may be interesting for the writer of the story, but not in general. And those with long history, or institutional history by now the N+1th version of yet another dispute is not inherently interesting.
What is interesting is the OP's link may have discovered new area in the solution space. So please talk about that!
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...
Respect and Courtesy are important at all times (IMNSHO). Some folks seem to feel that being respectful is a sign of weakness, but cops are extremely respectful, as they explain to you why they will be writing a ticket for an eye-watering amount (at least, good cops are).
Many moons ago, when the domain market was still a “thing,” I had a broker offer to sell me a domain I wanted, and the price was extremely reasonable, so I took them up on it. It turned out that they actually were “leasing” it to me, and they wouldn’t transfer it to me.
I asked them, and they responded fairly aggressively, pretty much telling me to FO, and that I was “harassing” them (a legal term, really), by asking them to release the domain.
My response was fairly similar to the approach in the article, and I was able to get the domain. They were not very gracious about it, but I did get it, and we never needed to deal with each other again, after that.
In another country, like the one I now live in, this would be a job for law enforcement.
You'd just hand over your files to some branch of the government, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, you'd get some money, but also, the site would stop cheating people.
Except that this rarely happens here, because companies know that law enforcement cares about systematic scams.
They might try to cheat you once, to see if you're a sucker, but if you put up any fuss, they'll give you the money.
Having a representative admit to violating their own policy/terms in writing is sort of a slam dunk.
The principle still applies though, good advice afaict.
Where do people get their info from to just go with a "time to contact the FTC"? If feels like the equivalent of people threatening they will contact the BBB.
Depending on the amount (that was $88 per the screenshot?), that is something you take to small claims court, you don't even need a lawyer for that.
If, however, you participate in face-to-face negotiations, you open up a whole slew of other possibilities of influence only limited by your personality and personal morals. As an example, a CEO friend of mine told me that he'd always make sure to get really drunk the day before an important negotiation, so he'd be grumpy and mean when he finally sat down at the table. Let's just say that his methods were in stark contrast to those promoted by Dale Carnegie.
Extrapolating from my own capacity to think clearly while I'm hungover I would suspect this is a profoundly bad idea.
I’ve had my credit card stolen multiple times this year, and the thief has used my card to send ME keto pills I didn’t want. This makes the transaction more difficult to dispute and doesn’t benefit a common thief in any way. These companies are just a facade for criminal activity in my opinion, though I’ve been unable to concretely connect the dots.
They pointed out that their web page clearly states you will need an account. I was shocked because I always make sure to very carefully research this. So I went to the wayback machine on archive.org and looked at their page on the day I purchased, and sure enough, the language was not in there. They had added it a few weeks later.
I sent them screenshots and receipts, and they still pushed back. Finally I issued them an ultimatum. Refund us the money or I'll do a chargeback and present my evidence to the credit card company. They immediately backed down and refunded us.
It is utterly insane that consumers need to take screenshots of every product page for products they buy in this day and age to not be screwed over.
I worked at rewardstyle (a fashion affiliate technology company) for nearly three years when it first launched and built out their instagram affiliate tool LikeToKnow.it as a side project with one other developer and a designer. We faced A LOT of mistrust and doubt from affiliates about earnings - sometimes valid and sometimes not.
There are so so so many ways that different retailers would invalidate earnings, break the tracking, the buyer would delete their cookies, buyer would get redirected from a us store to au or eu or other intl and have it not track, we'd miscalculate a payout somehow, ship some bugs, etc.
But we knew that we were in an industry that was looked at as pretty scummy so we did our best to always make things right and error on the side of generosity.
There were times where a retailer would break the commission tracking on their checkout page and we would know there were 1000 sales but wouldn't be able to attribute them directly to a specific affiliate. We had to just do our best to extrapolate their earnings and add a "sorry something broke" bonus.
I imagine that when presented with a choice of $88 payment or having to deal with a lawsuit, 100% of decision-makers will chose the former. And it’s not about the lawsuit outcome. Even if some complete garbage is filed which has no chance of success, the burden it creates on the business is clearly much higher than $88.
Thats because you are.
But... apparently still not worth keeping:
> I’ve since removed all mention of Kiss My Keto, as I no longer have any interest in helping them earn money, regardless of what they pay me.
To me, it seems like the real story here might be that someone is selling bread for a 20 percent markup. Or maybe they aren't, but have been able to make ends meet by stiffing referrals. The margins on groceries are typically small, which is borne out by Amazon's 1 percent comission rate for the Grocery category. If someone comes along offering to 20x your income, skepticism is in order.
You can formalize that skepticism with a multi-armed bandit algorithm. Basically, put affiliate commissions into the feedback loop, picking which affiliate links to use by expected value. But it may take a while with low click through volumes.
A 3€ per month liability insurance might have a 40€ commission, while a 400€ product might have a 10€ commission.
They currently advertise a discounted 4 bread pack for only $39.99 . I feel the markup is not exactly 20%.
The charge of putting a lot of work into an interesting article that HNers would upvote isn't very damning, and doing all of that just to increment 16 -> 17 in some marketing material isn't very convincing.
His own advice in the videos is "write good, interesting content" not some sort of gimmick.
As mentioned in the post, he has cut the affiliate program off. And given that he is naming & shaming them in the blog, and even after getting posted to HN, I think that relationship has soured.
>The site has grown steadily over time, to the point where it now has over 100,000 pageviews per month.
How did the CEO write this and not immediately ^H^H^H it? Could he really not think of a better phrasing than "your conversions"?
Its modern equivalent is HTML tag <del></del>, which also means "delete" due to the common knowledge of its meaning. One doesn't have to be a front-end developer to understand <del>, and one didn't have to be a vi user to understand ^H.
Amazingly at that point the entire thing was resolved in less than a day and not only did they finally get the billing amount correct but they then waived it entirely.
I never had an issue with paying them what I owed the problem was their figure and mine didn't match and they kept screwing up the collection.
Guessing it's the same affiliate manager I documented here:
https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2016/04/22/dirty-slimy-shady-s...
Trying to get me to publish fake reviews about companies he represents. He also likes using fake 'Re: BS subject that you never sent' tactic and claims it was a keyboard error.
Not surprising he's continuing to work with shady companies.
I'm confident I could probably recover most, but at this amount, I just don't want to deal with it. It's one of those cases where I wish I had a personal assistant. It makes me think there's room for a "consumer debt collector" service with a revenue share model.
There are various only services who go to court for you and will get as much money as they can. You go to their website, enter your flight, they calculate the probability that it was the airlines fault , they show you what you maybe can expect, you give them the permission and then they do everything else. The company takes something like 25% comission and that‘s it. It takes a few minutes. In the end she payed 100-200€ for the return flight and got something like 350€ back via the company.
Made me think if one could find the most unreliable flights, with the worst delay in case of a delay and fly them profitably by going to court all the time.
There was a company called Service that kind of did this. They launched around 2015. You would tell them about a customer service dispute you were having, and they would call the business on your behalf and recover the money you were owed. I used them several times, and they were able to recover money for me without me having to do much except give them the details.
It looked like they had a few million in VC money to blow through because it was free, and there were no minimums on the dispute amount, so it definitely couldn't last. In Feb 2017, they added a 30% commission on recovered money,[0] and then later that year, they pivoted to focus exclusively on disputes with airlines,[1] which it looks like they're still doing.[2]
[0] https://us11.campaign-archive.com/?u=8cdf4d62d0219f237ed96d7...
Reminds me I have a bank and an insurance company to talk or rather write to.
They sold me insurance on my mortgage, then came up with new rules when my wife sadly needed it.
I was in a tight spot then so it ended up with my family having a boring time (cheaper food, Dad working more, less money to spend on toys, tickets etc - and we didn't have to much in the first place).
Now I do have time and I do have money and I am tempted to give it a go. It should be something around $5000 (two months worth og salaries for my wife).
What you need to do in those circumstance is realize that you still have immense bargaining power with the specific individual, that can, according to company polices present you with a negative answer that is profitable to the company, but in all other respects is severely limited and must behave in a courteous and professional way. You need to reflect that back to them, and repeat your claims ad nausea, bringing more arguments and repeating your point of view with the utmost calm, as if nothing they say is relevant to your problem. Verbally, you state your claims and non-verbally you deliver the message that "I can do this all day and will not leave until you drag me out with security, making a scene". You do not move away from the counter and/or follow the employee calmly, non-threatening continuing to repeat your claims.
The frustration will build up even in the most seasoned customers representatives. All of a sudden, you are no longer the company's problem - a lost or dissatisfied customer; you are THEIR personal problem, a persistent client that demands their rights and stops them from engaging with other customers. Should they make a scene and become rude or verbally or physically abusive, it's their job on the line, for failing to properly handle a demanding client; but if they continue being calm and professional with you, they are failing to do their job and serve other customers. Many representatives will cave under this pressure, if what you are demanding is in their purview, or, a the very least, be very happy to rid themselves from you by producing an actual manager with the power to solve your claim (that would very rarely be disturbed otherwise).
I have successfully used this method to negotiate out of unscrupulous baggage fees at the airport, obtain discounts at advertised prices instead of the "fine print prices" etc. It's a time-money tradeoff, as was this one here. The method is less efective over the phone where the representative has the power to terminate a call. In this case here one company official made a serious mistake by stating in writing something contrary to official company policies. You will usually not be that lucky in email exchanges with an unscrupulous company.
I wrote it a few months ago and submitted it at the time[0], but it didn't seem like it was a match for HN. I was quite surprised when I woke up to find a tweet from a friend letting me know it was on the front page.
I recall one of my bosses telling me if you want to fire off an angry response, close your computer and take a walk outside. This works, I would come back and write a calm but firm email. Angry responses typically do not help.
I typically hate responses on twitter
The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.”
I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I have tried to complain to the regulator... None of that worked. Most of the time, they basically say something like “kiss my ass”
I don’t know how to deal with EU companies. I was always getting what I wanted in North America by using the organized professional method. I’m at a complete loss in Europe. Any advice?
In general: You have to find a weak spot. I have problems with a scam (ongoing) in an East European EU country and I have been trying to get the authorities for 6 months to act. Even hiring a lawyer has been extraordinary difficult. Most don't reply Emails, others charge exorbitant fees, our last lawyer is MIA so we are trying now with a lawyer that is listed on an embassy website. We are talking here about a loss of a mid 5 figure sum.
After nothing worked, I listened to the advice of a local friend and started to expose people from the government/police that do not act online. Very bold, very nasty, very below the waistline. But now it looks like I finally bombed them to the negotiation table. :-)
Which country are you talking about specifically?
If that doesn't fix the problem you then make use of their complaints process. This is hard because they usually hide it away somewhere. But they all have one. It's best to do this using real letters in the post, because you might need this paperwork later. Grind through it until you get a final answer.
If that didn't fix it you have a choice. For regulated industries you can go to the regulator for advice. Or you can start a legal process.
For the regulator send a letter using whatever weird webform they use. Make sure you mention that you've already exhausted the company's own dispute resolution process. Some regulators are better than others - often you won't get much satisfaction from regulators.
Send a letter before action. This describes what went wrong and what you want them to do to put it right. Give them the timeline of how you've tried to fix it. Give them reasonable time limits to fix it. Then issue small claims proceedings.
The customer service was simply repeating the same thing over and over: accounting says the money was sent. What aggravated the issue, was that basicly every email was replied by a different customer service agent. I pointed out to them that according to SEPA regulations it is the sender's responsibility to ensure that the funds reach the recipient, but they were ignoring it. I didn't think to ask to be forwarded to the legal compliance office. I did take legal action, sort of, by complaining through the EU out-of-court dispute resolution platform, but didn't receive any response through the platform (might have helped anyway, don't know).
What helped resolve it, was looking up SEPA regulations (because until then I was saying "this is your responsibility", they were replying "no it's not"), endurance, and a sense of humour.
Just the other day there was judgment in a case against Vodafone (a mobile carrier) where callcenters faked the voices on the call to get a provision and the customer should pay for something he never wanted. If you live in Germany, the Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice centre) can help you resolve issues like this.
In my experience, this has stopped working so well in the last few years with companies tending to call customers' bluffs.
In most cases the best solution is: stop giving them money and go to the competitor.
Don't threaten legal action unless you already plan to follow it through: companies know this is unlikely to be followed up and will stonewall you.
If the industry has an ineffective regulator/ombudsman then going to a competitor might not help. In that case, I'd write a polite letter to your national member of parliament. (They are more likely to make this go away by fixing your personal problem, not instigating industry changes, so write with that in mind)
I'm glad you've had only positive experiences with the police, but this is a hell of a take in 2020.
YMMV.
In India, the rank-and-file cadres that the common public interacts with: have the dirtiest and most disrespectful people one would ever face.
I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions.
It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.
I've found that it is entirely possible to be both polite, and quite firm.
Dishonesty is a big deal to me. I am incredibly honest and straightforward ("Blunt" is the word that has often been used). I worked many years, at a fairly deep level, for a Japanese corporation, where Honesty and Ethics were Principal currencies. In fact, I have been accused of being "disrespectful," when I have been entirely respectful, but unyielding. There are a lot of people that consider the definition of "respect" to read "Bends over and squeals for me."
I can deal with discourtesy, if it is honest discourtesy, but you won't get anything but honesty and courtesy from me (believe me, that has not always been the case, but I don't like to fight all the time, like I used to). These will, of course, be accompanied by very ethical behavior (which, sadly, does not mean that I'm a "doormat").
If you want to live your own life on different terms, then knock yourself out. We probably won't cross paths, much.
This is easily refuted. Being polite is socially expected, therefore being rude is unexpected. When you're rude, people take it personally, and it creates anxiety, anger, and rage, because it is unexpected and frankly, unnecessary.
There's just no situation I can imagine where being rude and impolite helps. Every social situation is ameliorated by the engine oil that is kindness. People are happier, more willing to help, more creative and flexible, all due to not yelling and not personally attacking them. Both parties in any transaction or interaction being polite is a win win.
Politeness and respect are important patient safety issues in healthcare. A lack of politeness and respect between a healthcare team causes harm, even death, in patients.
Civility Saves Lives: https://www.civilitysaveslives.com/
Agree with that;
> Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you
agree with that also;
> Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions
I could believe this is true, although I suspect most habitually dishonest people don't even see themselves as dishonest or think they're doing anything wrong.
None of these things are opposite to what the GP wrote though - so I don't understand what you're disagreeing with.
A classic example of the value of respect and courtesy in dealing with a difficult situation is when you have a problem with a food order at a restaurant. You can choose to shout at the person serving you, or approach the problem in a respectful and courteous way - in my experience, the latter is more effective at getting the best outcome, regardless of who is nominally at fault.
Respectful discourse also gives you an easy route to backing down when it turns out you've made the mistake, and some moral high ground if you need to escalate the situation.
Finally I would also say that even if someone is behaving unpleasantly towards you, that does not necessitate an unpleasant response. They may be having a terrible day for other reasons, and a little patience gives them a chance to relax a bit and respond in a more constructive way, which is to your benefit. It's hard for someone to stay angry with you when you're treating them fairly.
Dishonest people don't excuse their actions by being polite, they excuse by way of a defence which justifies their behaviour erroneously (i.e. those rules don't apply to me because...).
Dishonest people being polite is just a way of manipulating targets. Them not being polite doesn't stop them from being dishonest, it just removes a tool from their toolbox.
Keep it kind that it's easy to tell if somebody is impolite, but much harder to gauge whether they are dishonest.
I'm well aware of how toothless and irrelevant BBB is these days. ("Yelp for old people"). Almost nobody visits BBB before making a decision, only after a bad experience. Given that, a business with a bad grade there probably doesn't feel much of a sting.
But I'm totally unfamiliar with FTC's power or purview. Is involving them on something like this a waste of time because of the dollar amount? I don't expect they would recover the money, or mediate a dispute. But I think the author is coming at it from the angle that the other party would rather not rack up complaints at all. Especially if they could get other affiliates to follow suit.
I work in telecom, and complaints to the Public Utilities Commission are treated seriously within my company (and in the wider industry AFAIK). We really do not want customers to file any. When a customer mentions the PUC at all, we take them seriously enough to get some more eyes on their problem.
My guess is that the author's checklist includes small claims as the next step after the FTC complaint. Or maybe they just stop at the FTC complaint and consider a lawsuit—even if small claims—to not be worth it for the amount involved.
The consumer protection reporters for the new channel hanging around the headquarters also tend to grab a lot of attention in my experience. Happened once or twice that I remember where it was drop everything and solve the problem before the report goes out.
Now if you don't find anything that doesn't mean there won't be problems. But if you do it's like a flashing red light on the dashboard to back away.
Of course just my opinion, but I read:
>In the meantime, how do you wish to resolve the matter? What outcome are you wishing for?
as an amicable prompt to find a way to solve a trifling matter in a short time.
I mean, the "professional way" has nothing to do with managing to escalate to the CEO (how exactly did you manage to get his e-mail?).
Besides, a sentence like "I will seek other means to recover the money owed." is ambiguous enough to be easily read as a threat, as there may be "other means" that are not legal.
So - still as I read it - you hassle the CEO of a company, and Mr. Herscu is tasked to understand what the issue is about, and as soon as he finds out that the matter can be solved with paying 88 US$ he pays, problem solved.
Yeah, it's tough to say what would have happened with a different approach. I'm obviously biased, but I still feel like the communication style made a big difference. Given how hostile Herscu was in the first email, I don't think I would have reached successful resolution had I just angrily demanded payment.
>I mean, the "professional way" has nothing to do with managing to escalate to the CEO (how exactly did you manage to get his e-mail?).
No, that's a critical part of it. The thing I learned from patio11's article was how valuable it is to navigate their bureaucracy and get to someone who has incentive to help you.
Everyone else at the company who was emailing me had the email "[firstname]@kissmyketo.com". I looked up the CEO's name and confirmed the email by Googling "alex@kissmyketo.com", which turns up several of the company's old blog posts that invite readers to email him directly.
Obviously your keto site has a lot of products, but given the energy in this particular affiliate writeup, have you seen their product in retail anywhere?
>do you think that 10 bucks per loaf of bread is a reasonable price? Even the reviews on their website indicate a lot of people think it's expensive.
Eh, it's sort of like anything else. People spend thousands of dollars on speakers, which is an unreasonable price to me but a reasonable price to the buyer. If you want bread that fits into the keto diet, "reasonable" is just a matter of what it's worth to you.
I also think that for many medium-to-high-income consumers, paying a $7 premium on a food they want is not that significant.
But I've never seen their product in retail stores. I put in the effort on chasing down the money more out of principle than hopes that I'd get any significant money out of the deal.
However, despite the title including the word "debt", this is not a "debt" you were collected because the exact amount was not discussed. Instead, $88 just seemed like a mutually agreeable number. But it could have been a lot higher or a lot lower.
Basically, you just agreed to settle and not continue to press your valid claims of potential affiliate fraud.
Basically, you just agreed to settle and not continue to press your valid claims of potential affiliate fraud.
What would have been a better course of action?
Even under the most optimistic estimates, they owed me less than $500. I don't have access to their sales data, so I don't have hard proof that they're committing fraud. The company's legal team could just turn around and say, "Oh, our rep was mistaken when they said we're not following our own policy. We actually do pay according to our published agreement, but you didn't make any sales during that time period."
I could have pursued options for some sort of class action lawsuit with subpoenas for their sales data, but that's a much bigger time and financial commitment than I wanted to put in.
I do think it ran a little long, but no worse than that.
I did spend several hours writing and editing it over a couple weeks, but I understand it might not feel cohesive.
The challenge was that there were a lot of details to cover to explain the background. The email exchanges were a bit convoluted because they involved a lot of backreferences to previous events or other screenshots. I wanted to tell the story in an interesting way while presenting the raw evidence instead of just summarizing everything and asking the reader to assume I'm being fair, but I can see how all the screenshots and blockquotes might have made it feel cluttered.
This write up is very well structured and reads very easily.
EX: Grubhub chnaginging Yelp phone numbers to get an affiliate commission on people looking up a restaurants phone number.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23862316
Based on the fact that I have also lived there, and looking at his comment history, I don’t think you can take this comment as being entirely accurate.
And even if there was something (still the way I am reading between the lines) he was likely told by his CEO - to put it blatantly - "Hey, get this sucker threatening me off my back".
But yes, if it is possible to bypass all the lower levels, it is a good move, I had the privilege of knowing personally a few top CEO's/entepreneurs/influential people, and they always recommended me "Always talk to the higher in grade".
Right, I'm just wondering what due diligence looks like before you go to the effort of putting a new affiliate program into effect. Like 'is this a real product, do they actually sell things, and deliver them.'
Their 'find us in retail locations' lists GNC as a retailer, and GNC lists "Keto Burn capsules" as their only product line carried from KMK. I... am suspicious of that.
I've been in the digital and affiliate space for well over a decade and have run programs from the tiny to the massive. Platforms like Impact, SAS and others are great, but if you're looking to get started and don't want to break the bank, let me know. It isn't a business, just a super simple platform for running a program that I built for my own use and could easily be used by others.
Lucky I'm not in the UK :)
Affiliate systems are the marketing equivalent of gig work. The quality of both product and affiliate are quite variable, but a good product and good affiliate are a strong net positive for society. Again, to use my case as an example, we have API integrations that we wouldn't have otherwise had and video tutorials in languages that we don't speak. Our customers love our product, I'm not ashamed to reward them for talking about it.
If you think every product should sell itself by 100% organic word of mouth... well, that's the rare exception, not the rule. If you're trying to build a business this way, you're in for a rough time.
I may not be able to stop that, but I certainly don't want to support it.
The incentives of affiliates and principals aren't as fully aligned as might be hoped.
The repair tech sympathetically said that he was trying, but their policy at the time said the interference was at acceptable levels for voice and he wasn’t able to convince his management to trace the problem upstream and replace the line to fix one rural customer’s service.
On his fourth trip out he slipped dad a post it note with a phone number. It was the state public utility commission. My dad called on Thursday.
That Saturday, the district manager knocks on our door. He informs us of how sorry the entire Bell family is for the trouble we’ve had, that they have teams tracing lines from the central office to our house and will have the problem identified and fixed by Sunday, and that we will receive a rather significant discount to our bill over the next year to help “make it right”. His only ask was that we call the PSC and let them know if AT&T had solved the problem to our satisfaction.
- A promised warranty being fulfilled
- A battle of attrition until Macy's gave in
I'm sure there are more nuanced options also but I'm not going to take the time to guess each one as frankly I'm just not quite sure what the definition of Customer Service should be from this post. Should we focus on "The device was used to its limits and still replaced"? That Macy's actually honored a guarantee?
I have a very dour view on customer service since my particular line of work is B2B with IT professionals and it's rarely a pleasant experience with many regions, with the US (yes, nationally) and the UK (yes, basically all of it) being some of the most challenging customers to deal with simply because of their expectations and definitions of Customer Service.
The majority of the time they're not even aware of the terms of their support contract and constantly are pushing the boundaries of support or from the get-go are just far beyond anything that should be reasonably expected, and the amount of complaining and legal threats really takes an emotional toll on my team (since a lot of them do really want to help).
With the EU clients, the same boundary pushing happens, but I find there's usually much more of an honesty about it. Usually one of three things comes from our EU clients:
- The client openly admits they know we don't provide support for said thing, but they really have no other source for help
- The client honestly tells they had no idea we didn't provide support for such things, and humbly asks if there's anything we can offer to help out
- The client honestly had no idea we didn't provide support for such things, and closes out the case of their own volition
I'm not sure that I can say which result has the best "customer experience" for my clients, as in each case they don't get what they expected from the case they open. US/UK clients tend to add a 4th option:
- The client doesn't care what is/is not supported, they want a resolution
I can easily say which of the 4 outcomes is the most time consuming and emotionally draining for everyone involved.
I think that the idea of service is really misunderstood; service workers are not slaves, and while management __should__ work to make them do their job and honor the business' obligations, management also needs to help clearly define the boundaries of such obligations and explain how to gracefully deescalate situations that toe or exceed these boundaries.
It's always "small" amounts like 50-500$, i.e. amounts that it sucks throwing out the window but that aren't big enough to justify sinking even more time in chasing.
I also don't believe this can be the only way. Most people don't have legal insurance and wouldn't pay a lawyer the equivalent of 1000$ for a dispute like that.
I'm talking every day stuff: a cellphone bill with an error on it (in the company's favour, always), or an Ikea piece of furniture that was delivered broken (but the package looked fine), or a voucher you were promised if you signed up for a particular health insurance plan and when it's time to get the voucher you're not eligible anymore... That kind of stuff.
This still requires some amount of time from you and the small filing fees, the way I would calculate is whether I can earn more in that half day I spend in court and is my documented evidence clear and simple enough that i have an high probability of success.
The judges in such courts are usually impatient - they have ton of cases in their the docket, concise and simple presentation of facts and no opinions etc goes a long way, they also know you are not a lawyer so there is always some latitude for the plaintiff that usually you don't find in other places
Also your ability to sue in small claims court depends on jurisdiction, i.e. if you have any forced arbitration clauses in your contract and whether the jurisdiction has exceptions for small claims despite such clauses etc.
I've also tried charging back on my Swiss card once... What a mission. I was treated the same way any other store treats me: download this PDF, print it out, fill it in (5 pages), send it in the mail, wait 3 weeks, never hear back.
Compared to my North American cards: one phone call and the dispute is open. Wait a month and get the credit. End of story.
Or for cell phone issues in NA: try calling once, get nowhere, tell the regulator with time of call and name of the person, a week later get a call from the "VIP" service at the telco who will basically give me whatever I want to make the complaint go away.
There are no regulators with that kind of power that I know of here. All of the "regulators" have no teeth, and so the businesses don't fear them.
In the past I've had disputes where I've made tens of phone calls to customer support people who cannot solve the problem but pretend they will. Every call is groundhog day.
Now, if the problem isn't solved by the first phone call I write a letter.
A short paragraph (one or two sentences) describing what happened and why it is a problem. A short paragraph describing what I want. Then all the tedious detail. And conclude by restating the problem and what I want. No threats.
It hasn't failed yet.
This is exactly my point. You are using politeness as a manipulative tactic to get your way.
Instead, realize getting the wrong order at a restaurant is an incredibly insignificant issue. There was never anything to be upset about in the first place. Regardless the outcome. If someone messes up your order you just say “Looks like we have the wrong order. We ordered X”. There is zero requirement of being polite or impolite unless your goal is to manipulate the situation for your own gain.
For example if you are trying to get your meal for free now or something else they did not immediately offer. If you are a decent human being, you’ll realize the free meal probably comes out of the server’s paycheck so you don’t push for it.
See, in this case it is your actions, not whether you are polite matters.
Of course, just being a jerk maniac and screaming at someone is awful. That is no different than trying to be polite for your own advantage. Both hurt people. I was not saying you should be a jerk or that being a jerk is okay. I’m saying you don’t need to be polite as much as you need to not hurt people.
You actually do have to follow through if you're going to play that game. Otherwise almost everyone is just going to call your bluff, and I'm reasonably sure CS reps are now being actively trained to do so immediately at many companies. For example, any implication that you'd like to close an account or cancel an order will just be met with "I can do that for you immediately if you like", and if you don't take them up on it then they know you're not serious and you've lost any sort of credibility or leverage you might have had.
So, actually follow through. In the UK, suppose you have a legitimate grievance but get messed around by customer services, who may of course be incentivised to do exactly that. You may get better results by desisting from dealing with CS reps and instead sending a letter with verified delivery to the company's registered address. Clearly set out your grievance, what you would like them to do about it, and a reasonable amount of time you will allow for that to happen. Also include everything necessary for it to constitute a letter before action, which is the first step to a formal small claims action here, and possibly give a simple, objective statement in your letter that unfortunately if the matter is not resolved amicably by your stated deadline then you will proceed with that action.
IME, at that point your case may well be transferred to someone who actually knows the law and will be able to see if they have actually broken it or have obligations under it. And if they do, they'll know that it's in their best interests to resolve the matter quickly and agreeably if possible, and you may well get a response proposing some reasonable resolution (or saying that they'll stop chasing you if they've been hassling you after making a mistake).
If they don't do that, then actually bring the small claims action. This is designed to be accessible to normal people without requiring big expenses and professional lawyers. A lot of companies will apparently just not show up and let you win by default in that case, and you'll get some reasonable compensation for whatever wrong they've done to you. And if they do show up and you have a reasonable grievance, there's still a fair chance you'll win reasonable compensation accordingly.
That's a very cynical view and not what I'm talking about at all.
Yes, people manipulate other people using politeness sometimes. Being polite does not in general make a person manipulative.
> Regardless the outcome. If someone messes up your order you just say “Looks like we have the wrong order. We ordered X”
But... your example is a polite response, albeit impersonal. This is more or less what I would say. Do we have a different definition of politeness?
> I’m saying you don’t need to be polite as much as you need to not hurt people
I agree that trying not to hurt people is the right thing to do - but using the right language can be important in achieving that. Gentle language can reduce the pressure the other person is feeling if there is a problem to resolve. That's not manipulation, it's empathy.
You highlighted the phrase I used: "the latter is more effective at getting the best outcome, regardless of who is nominally at fault" - here I think we're just using language differently to each other. When I talk about getting the best outcome, I'm not talking about trying to trick someone into doing something for me. If I raise an objection, I have a specific outcome in mind - e.g. I would like my order to be fixed (and yes, this is a trivial example - in reality I would probably just eat what I'm given unless I don't like it, but in any case this is just a thought experiment). Having an outcome in mind and hoping for it to be a good outcome are not about manipulation; it's about understanding that some conversations involve transactions, and they can be concluded pleasantly and positively for all involved, or not. Manipulating someone in fact aims to achieve maximum benefit for one party at the expense of the other party, and even if it wears a "polite face" it is in fact the opposite of genuine politeness.
I feel like you and I probably actually agree but are just talking about slightly different thing. Otherwise I still don't understand what you're saying.
You seem to have the opinion that basic politeness is manipulation. I suppose it can be construed as such but only in the sense that all communication is manipulation in some sense.
Deal with folks that are on the bad end of the stick, and consider violence to be an appropriate way to solve problems. Be someone that is trying to help them, which includes teaching them that there are other ways to resolve issues.
This kind of relationship means that we need to have an empathetic, respectful, authoritative aspect, but that we also need to realize that we could have a real, physical threat of violence directed our way, if we are not respectful and courteous (and sometimes, even then). We also need to not be doormats.
Teaches you to be polite, but firm, real quick.
In the US, servers cannot be charged for free meals given out to customers. In some states, they could be charged for food mistakes, only if the mistake was directly their fault due to negligence.
> in my experience, the latter is more effective at getting the best outcome, regardless of who is nominally at fault.
> This is exactly my point. You are using politeness as a manipulative tactic to get your way.
They didn’t say the best outcome for them, they said the best outcome. Being polite and showing basic respect for others generally leads to better outcomes for everyone. You sound like how a robot might look at human interactions, not understand that humans are hardwired to be social animals and social interactions are not a calculated tactic to gain advantage.
The hard part isn't winning - which is easy if you have even a minimally credible case - it's enforcement.
If the company ignores the judgement you have to go back to court to get an enforcement order. And then you'll have to engage a collections company and/or a bailiff. And if they seize goods to the value of because they can't extract a payment, you won't be paid until the goods are auctioned off.
To a company turning over millions, a one-off claim for a few hundred is barely worth noticing. From their POV you're barely a flea bite, and of course most people will give up on a claim without much of a fight. So naturally they're going to try that first.
The other point is that most people you deal with don't care either way. They'll follow the company script, because the outcome - and your inconvenience - mean nothing to them.
As for enforcement, here, you're allowed to sell the debt the company owes you to collectors, and this pays 10% interest a year--not bad compared to a checking account. You can demand they show up in court again and answer to the judge why they haven't paid, and when they will, you can lay claim to rent and assets, et cetera. The court won't do that for you, but it very much does want to help legitimately harmed parties settle their score.
I agree it's not fast, though.
Then once again you just have to actually follow through. Obviously a business can't just decide to ignore a court ruling against it and get away with it if you take steps to enforce. And if you don't want to, there are professional organisations who are experts in the relevant law and will act as your agent and take enforcement action of the appropriate type for your case.
Second, what is your general position on business ethics? If you get yours, then is it ok for them to be potentially screwing others? Basically are you of the perspective that as long as you're taken care of, who cares about the others?
You're right, a class action would be the result here, and maybe it's not worth it for this fleabag of a company and the potential outcome you might get.
But I think you might want to rethink what this article is about.
This article, despite the title and claims has little to do with a professional note-taking approach. Rather it's "How I uncovered potential affiliate fraud, and I agreed to settle with them for a small amount rather than fight them."
I don't. I stopped doing business with them after the exchange with the co-founder.
>Second, what is your general position on business ethics? If you get yours, then is it ok for them to be potentially screwing others? Basically are you of the perspective that as long as you're taken care of, who cares about the others?
I do care about the others, but I also don't think I'm obligated to spend months/years of my life leading a class-action lawsuit on their behalf.
Short of that, I don't have a good way of contacting their other affiliates at scale. I directly reached out to some of the affiliates they feature as success stories, and I reached out to other keto bloggers, but none of them were that interested in talking to me. I think there's so much shady behavior in keto affiliate advertising that the affiliates either (a) didn't care about the particulars as long as their absolute payout was decent and/or (b) didn't want to engage with a random blogger they don't know who's possibly just a disgruntled affiliate.
I wrote the article so that anyone who Googles the affiliate program will find out about their behavior. This is pretty outside the subject matter of my normal blog posts. If I was looking to write something that would appeal to lots of readers, I'd write about my usual subjects of solo entrepreneurship or software development.
What obligations do you feel I'm failing to meet here?
In that view, is your view of politeness as a bad signal more aligned with obsequiousness or with civil assertiveness?
I see it all the time.
People get very, very upset, when they find out that I'm not the doormat they had me pegged to be.
It's fun, when that happens.
Ultimately I got things resolved and money was paid back by the site because of relentless emailing and keeping factual (like the article talks about) that resolved it. Needless to say the bank wasn’t real helpful so “just use a credit card” doesn’t quite seem to work, at least in my experience. (This was in NL btw, not US)
You shouldn't try to block transactions when something you never did shows up, you should report it as fraud. If they got your number, somebody else probably has it too. Trying to "block" probably got you put in the wrong pipeline.
I had a similar experience with a (quite popular but not google) website provider that I had a relationship with and had given them my CC. At some point my account credentials went invalid - I could not do a password recovery no matter what I tried. Since I could not log in, I could not cancel the subscription. I emailed them and got no response. I could not contact "customer service" because I had to log into the site in order to do that.
After two years(!) of charges (charged once a year) and no responses, I got fed up and contested the most recent charge on my CC. I was contacted via email the next day by a customer service representative who was pretty unhappy with the chargeback and threatened me with cancelling my account. Exactly what I wanted - problem solved!
it's also not just used as an input, but also what a terminal that can't do or doesn't understand a backspace as "delete character, step to the left" prints instead.
1001000 ASCII 'H'
1000000 "ctrl bit"
0001000 ASCII backspace
(And of course that last bit is a whole topic unto itself; to this day, caps lock is the dumbest key on the whole keyboard to me - mostly useless, takes up prime real estate, and 100% worth remapping on every machine I control. But that's a rant for another day:])
Another option that can work is to send a bill for the owed amount and if they fail to respond start the process of debt collection (Betreibung). It’s a pain and doesn’t work well for people who actually cannot pay, but for regular businesses where you’re stuck somewhere in their bureaucracy it’s a way to force them to respond to your claims that’s a bit less involved than straight-out suing them.
If this happens to you a lot, go for a credit card. "Chargeback" works worldwide (afaik) and it puts you in the position of power, where merchant has to prove that you are in the wrong instead of the other way around. Simple solution and no real drawback.
EDIT: ...and change your CC company. They seem incompetent.
Also, consumer protection is nice on paper, but especially for smaller amounts of money or not-so-clear cases it doesn't work well. You still have to get a lawyer and go to court. Also, since there are no class-action suits US-style, where companies seem to be somewhat afraid of getting sued, in Europe they rely on the statistics of most people being too lazy to sue, because everyone has to sue one-by-one for themselves only. Only rarely, for high-profile stuff, consumer protection offices get involved with class-style (but fairly toothless usually) suits.
I'm in the UK, and made my first ever charge back a couple of months back, after Ryanair refused to refund a flight that was cancelled due to corona virus (we'd booked it before the pandemic started). I'd paid with my CC (a UK card; not sure why it would be any different with a US CC?). I forget the exact sum, but it was something like £1,500.
Ryanair completely took the piss - they were very clearly trying to hold on to everyone's money for the duration, and ignored communications or offered ridiculous, short-lived credit notes in lieu of a refund. Several months passed like this.
Eventually I read up on how charge backs worked and called my card provider. They sent a form, and within a couple of weeks, the money was back in my account - the whole process was really straightforward, and I fully recommend using it if a vendor is outright refusing to uphold their side of the bargain.
Nevertheless I don't abuse this. I only request a charge back if I assume I also would win a lawsuit. But nobody has ever challenged one of my charge backs in court.
Definitely agree. I'm pushing 40, and this is the first time I've done it. When I talked with friends and colleagues about this (from in the UK, but also from around Europe), I don't think a single person even knew what chargebacks were.
But I don't think I've ever once been in this kind of situation where my hand was forced - companies in Europe generally do the right thing, or at least behave within the boundaries of the law.
This is what charge backs are for. It is not my duty to invest time, nerves and potentially even pay interest for this.
What is also very stupid since they don't lose only the money but also very likely a customer.
It also has to be considered that shrinking their market share is viable if it allows the company to survive.
really really doubt that you even tried. In mainland europe you just needed to fill a form, after a month you would have your money back.
I sent numerous emails, filled in maybe 6 forms, and multiple times had their understaffed online chat system open for up to 8 hours trying to speak to someone - for all the good it did when they answered.
Here in the UK, at the start, yes, Ryanair asked you to fill in a form, and said they would issue refunds within 14 days. I, like several thousand of others, duely filled in the form - only for Ryanair to change their tune a couple of weeks later. My guess was they'd sought legal advice, and found some loophole they thought would allow them to get away with it.
They went several weeks at a time with no general customer communications, and weren't replying to emails - on the rare occasions they did, it was to say they'd process refunds "later". Some weeks later, they sent out a general customer email, saying they'd only be issuing (short-lived!) credit notes instead of refunds, and anyone who declined would have to apply again, and would then have to wait until the pandemic was over for a refund. This whole (illegal!) debacle was very widely reported in the British media.
Especially in Eastern Europe, they might be the only airline with direct flights between smaller cities and Western Europe[1]. There's no way I'm choosing Lufthansa and changing flights in Munich if I can go direct with Ryanair and save 3+ hours.
I've wondered if I show up as this type of customer to Ryanair, since there have been a couple of times when it's been within their terms for them to charge me (e.g. slightly overweight luggage, lost boarding pass) and they haven't.
[1] Destinations from London Luton, almost entirely Ryanair and similar budget airlines -- zoom in to ~Slovakia: https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-london-luton-...
Not only price. We've flown previously with Ryanair numerous times, and I don't think price was ever the deciding factor - they simply fly to a lot of European destinations, so for us it's meant shorter routes.
They've completely lost my trust after this debacle though - their illegal behaviour had been utterly shameful, and I'll go out of my way not to use them in future.
