This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School, or welcome if this is your first episode. Episode 1848, been making this podcast for you every single day since January 1, 2017. And I'm so excited about all the things coming up this year. If you have never made it your year of starting a Side Hustle and income generating project, let's do it this year.
Why not? Or if you got a little off track, or if you just want to grow your business, whatever your goal is, I'm in it with you. And let's begin today with a frustrating situation, okay? One of our listeners has a tour guide business. The tour guide business is just getting going, but they have recently encountered a negative situation.
All right? And unfortunately, this is a somewhat common negative situation, or at least let's say it isn't rare in the world of small business when you accept credit cards, like when you accept credit cards as payment. Of course, I'm talking about a chargeback, okay? Where you've sold a product and you've been paid, and all is well, you think, but then a few weeks or a few months sometimes later, you get a notice from the bank that they have taken back the money. And you're like, "What? Is that fair?"
Well, if you're running a fraudulent business, then it probably is fair, right? Because you shouldn't be ripping people off. But assuming you're running a perfectly legitimate business, not a pyramid scheme, and you have actually fulfilled your end of the bargain, you have delivered that service or product, it's not fair at all, okay? So, what do you do in this situation? How should our listener handle this frustrating incident?
That's what we'll look at in this short, informative episode. [Music]
Hi there, Chris. This is Lauren, and I've been following your projects since attending WDS a couple of years ago. I've been selling unofficial Disneyland tours where I tell the secrets of Disney that are lesser known, or that in some cases, the company doesn't want visitors to know about. After I was featured in a local alt weekly newspaper, I'm now getting several new clients a week.
I love doing the tours, but I recently had a problem. One of my customers requested a charge back through their credit card company. I never heard any complaints from them, and as far as I know, they were satisfied. But Square, my payment processor, already refunded the payment, and the money has gone from my account. This feels unfair.
How can I appeal? And why would someone do this in the first place? Looking forward to your thoughts on this. Thanks. - Oh my gosh, it is unfair.
You're absolutely right. And first, let's say congratulations on those unofficial Disneyland tours. It sounds like it's going well overall, so there's much to be joyful about. But yes, as for the situation, it is annoying. It is unfair.
So what can you do? Well, actually, I think you're also asking why would someone do this in the first place? I mean, who knows, right? Like it could be an honest mistake, let's say that. Or they just could be upset about something that you didn't know about, or I don't know.
There's lots of reasons for it, but without getting too much into the psychology of it, like what do you do, okay? Now, as for what you can do, can you appeal? You absolutely can appeal. You can absolutely appeal any charge back, and you should. In my experience, you have at least a 50/50 chance of success, and there's some things you can do to increase those odds.
So our caller here mentioned Square. If you're using Square or another payment processor, they're all going to have some sort of process for this. When they notify you of a charge back, there's usually a link where you can go and provide your side of the story. And so when you do that, it's really good to just be concise, explain factually what happened, avoid any emotional language, don't get too much into the weeds. Just say like, hey, actually we charged this customer for a service that they requested and received.
If you have any info on your website about your refund policy, like for a tour business, most of them would not have a refund option. So if you have that listed on your website, include a link to that page. If you had any communication with the customer, like in this case, the customer just kind of disappeared and then you got the charge back. But in some cases, there might be some communication that supports your side of the story, include that as well. Mostly what you want to do is just respond promptly and professionally and you can get those odds, as I said, even higher than 50/50, okay?
And last but not least, just remember that this isn't totally rare, like it does happen, but it's much more important to focus on all the good customers that you have because most people aren't going to do this. It's one of those annoying things, but it shouldn't detract you from your mission of serving customers, building your business, making money, all those kinds of good things, all right? So good luck, let us know how it goes. Listeners, if you've got a question of your own, sidehustleschool.com/questions, I'm excited about this big year and I look forward to sharing it with you. Got a new episode coming out every single day, which you can download or stream wherever you like to get your podcasts.
And I hope you'll join me again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, you're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
