>The thing is, even here on HN (where I expect, maybe not warranted, the level to be higher), people seem to absolutely proud and entitled to chargeback whatever for whatever reason.

I'm not American (I'm from the UK), but filing a chargeback is an incredibly satisfying weapon for a consumer.

So many companies try to weasel out of their legal obligations under consumer protection law, so why not hit them with a chargeback when they won't do what they're required to?

After being burned by PayPal protection not working out, I will now buy anything I can directly on a Credit Card, as you just get so much more protection in the UK - both contractually and legally.

> The thing is, even here on HN (where I expect, maybe not warranted, the level to be higher), people seem to absolutely proud and entitled to chargeback whatever for whatever reason. Those are almost 100% Americans (I check) and that is where I got the idea; this sentiment is much higher on tiktok, youtube, reddit etc. I even saw some shorts of people screwing merchants with chargeback like it is some batch of honour.

That's an example of selection bias and other confounding factors: HN users are disproportionately American, Americans are more likely to know of chargeback rights than people from other countries, Americans are more likely to have credit cards than people from other countries, American statutory rights in this area (especially for credit rather than debit cards) are stronger than in most other countries, people who abuse chargebacks are more likely to be American than from other countries for all of the foregoing reasons, Americans are more likely to boast than people from most other countries, Reddit has disproportionately many Americans, and people who make shorts about chargebacks are more likely to do chargebacks than people who don't.

Consider statistical rather than anecdotal evidence in this area. According to one payments processing company, Clearly Payments, the USA has slightly below average chargeback rates, at 0.47%, behind the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France:

https://www.clearlypayments.com/blog/chargeback-rate-by-coun...

There's nothing wrong with using a right the card networks explicitly provide you. Even here on HN I see a huge tendency to play fast and loose with access to customer money, and corporation-on-consumer fraud has been normalized and is treated as no big deal. Chargebacks are a normal and expected reaction to that.

I'm sure chargeback abuse is a thing, but in aggregate, I'd argue people are still not doing enough chargebacks, because businesses are still engaging in unethical (& potentially illegal) practices of billing customers for services not rendered, or unclear pricing, or dark patterns.

Dark patterns with regards to payment should be a big no-no, and the fact they're still around suggests this behavior isn't being punished enough. So we should in fact have more chargebacks, until the situation becomes that it's more profitable to play fair and legal than try dirty tricks.

Unlimited, no-confirmation access to pull money just based on a static card number is a bug to begin with - ideally every money movement would be authorized on the spot or preauthorized in advance up to a limit.

But assuming we do have this bug, it seems like merchants are happily abusing it - "free" trials that are impossible to cancel, unexpected charges buried in 50 pages of T&C, etc. Chargeback is a completely normal reaction to this and I recommend it to everyone.

The heuristic I use is simple: did I expect this charge, and would I have agreed to pay for it had I been asked for upfront? If not, the merchant gets a quick email, and if they're not cooperating, taking unreasonable time to action it or are outright unreachable they're eating a chargeback and it'll be up to them & their processor to argue it further. They are welcome to put their processor/acquirer person on hold for hours (like they would do me if I were to play their game) and see how that works out for them.

> I'm sure chargeback abuse is a thing, but in aggregate, I'd argue people are still not doing enough chargebacks

But it only adds fees aka an extra tax; you are paying for it. Merchants just up the prices, banks up fees, conversion rates, etc etc. Someone is paying for it and it's always most likely you. The strange idea people have that 'this is free because it is law' is interesting. It is VCs (in neo banks), it is you in established banks. I rather do not pay for any of your chargeback behaviour really.

But I’d rather pay a small tax across everything rather than get stuffed for a much bigger amount.

Ideally, we’d have technical means to prevent people from getting stuffed (the oAuth-style token system I’ve described in other comments on this thread), combined with legal means to ensure businesses are discouraged from doing the stuffing in the first place (and those who do are promptly sued out of existence).

Until this happens, consumers (including me) will keep using chargebacks as their only way to defend their interests.

Also, if we were to magically rewrite the system tomorrow and eliminate card fees and the potential for chargebacks, do you really think businesses worldwide will suddenly lower their prices as a result? The market already demonstrated it is willing to pay the current prices, so the savings from lack of fees/chargebacks will end up in executives’ yachts instead or pissed away in more advertising.