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How to Get 7 Month Old CC Payment Returned?


CHIEF

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So back in May, my niece's boyfriend's pickup transmission went out. I found him one online (no good deed goes unpunished) for $1099 from Rebuilttransmissionsupply.com, that included a free torque converter for a 2008 Silverado with almost 200k miles. After about 10 days of not receiving the rebuilt transmission we called them, and 2008 was a "one year only" transmission, a "15 pin" 4L60E, would have been nice if they told us this up front. They assured us they would have a rebuildable core in there in the next few days. After being assured that a transmission was on its way for the next six weeks, they finally asked us to ship his old transmission to Michigan so they could rebuild it. We agreed, but told them we would need about an hour to get off work and come meet the pick up driver, and to have him give us a call about an hour before he got there. Needless to say, they never called, and we missed the pick up.

With the obvious communication issues and empty promises, I thought it would be best not to ship the transmission, would probably never see it again. My niece's boyfriend has called repeatedly and was given the run around. Now it goes straight to their voicemail and they will not call him back, so he is out the $1099. This saga has drawn out over 6 months, how does he get his money back?

CHIEF

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19 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

call the credit card company and tell them that you never received the product.  Easy.

Thanks, I wasn't sure if there was a statute of limitations on it. I always assumed it was 30-60 days at most.

CHIEF

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Might be worth filing a small claims suit on.  Problem is, it likely should be done in Michigan to maximize chance of recovery, which probably means a lawyer.

In most jurisdictions, you get your attorneys fees along with a judgment for the amount in controversy.  That might make it worth the lawyer's while, maybe.

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37 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Well, he called the CC company, it's his debt card, but they said it was over 60 days so they can't help. Any other ideas?

CHIEF

debit cards are useless.  Never, ever use a debit card for this type of thing.   If it were a CC, you'd likely get your money back.

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3 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

debit cards are useless.  Never, ever use a debit card for this type of thing.   If it were a CC, you'd likely get your money back.

This is the correct answer.  Never use your debit card for anything but an ATM.   
 

credit cards offer so many protections the people are unaware of.   
 

a couple of follow ups; was the transition ran through visa/master?  What bank?  

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18 minutes ago, BearSchlong said:

I thought visa was visa - regardless if it was a credit or debit card.

You can refuse to pay a credit card. You can't get your money back off of a debit card dispute that is declined unless you are a good enough customer to make it worth our while to do it. @CHIEF  did you try raising stink with the bank? That's a large transaction, but if you have some clout and some loans they could give you your money back and eat the loss. The banks often eat the loss on disputes anyway.

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2 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

I'll have to check on the bank, I assume it is a Visa or MasterCard, that's what all of my debit cards are.

CHIEF

If it’s one of the large banks I’d check in with their fraud department.  They’ll research the venders complaint history for you.  At the very least you’ll have some documentation you can turn into local PD or use in small claims court.  

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It was Conner's card (the boyfriend). Good kid, but not a big client I assume, but I bet his whole family banks there. The company has good reviews, an I'm sure they are great on most transmissions, but they need to flag the 2008 year model and let people know how hard they are to get. I left a scathing one star review for them that isn't on the site yet. I assume they get to see it, and try to remedy the situation. This has cost me only about $200, personally, so far, sounds like it might end up being more.

However, he might have some leverage, his note on the truck is probably with the same bank, he owes $8k on the piece of shit. Tell them to get his money back, or drive to Texas and get the truck, the old transmission will be in the bed.

CHIEF

Edited by CHIEF
Leverage
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10 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

It was Conner's card (the boyfriend). Good kid, but not a big client I assume, but I bet his whole family banks there. The company has good reviews, an I'm sure they are great on most transmissions, but they need to flag the 2008 year model and let people know how hard they are to get. I left a scathing one star review for them that isn't on the site yet. I assume they get to see it, and try to remedy the situation. This has cost me only about $200, personally, so far, sounds like it might end up being more.

However, he might have some leverage, his note on the truck is probably with the same bank, he owes $8k on the piece of shit. Tell them to get his money back, or drive to Texas and get the truck, the old transmission will be in the bed.

CHIEF

Check Yelp, and light them on fire there. 

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31 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

It was Conner's card (the boyfriend). Good kid, but not a big client I assume, but I bet his whole family banks there. The company has good reviews, an I'm sure they are great on most transmissions, but they need to flag the 2008 year model and let people know how hard they are to get. I left a scathing one star review for them that isn't on the site yet. I assume they get to see it, and try to remedy the situation. This has cost me only about $200, personally, so far, sounds like it might end up being more.

However, he might have some leverage, his note on the truck is probably with the same bank, he owes $8k on the piece of shit. Tell them to get his money back, or drive to Texas and get the truck, the old transmission will be in the bed.

CHIEF

Can't hurt, but for that kind of loan I'd probably charge it off and ruin his credit for a few years. The family angle is a great one and something I'd listen to for sure.

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Liability for this on a debit card is capped at $50 if you dispute within two days, $500 within 60 days, and uncapped after that. Unless your bank really likes you they're probably going to wash their hands of it by "advising" that you work through the merchant (who you can't reach) to work this out. 

tl;dr - don't use a debit card for anything but getting cash out of an ATM...

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Complaining (Yelp, bbb) won’t do much if the company is effectively out of business.

buying with a debit card is a nice Dave Ramsey thing but it takes leverage away from you. Debit cards offer less protection. The bank is right that fraud protection for debit cards is not capped after 60 days. If you wait to complain to the bank, the money is gone.

Future reference: Always put large transactions on a credit card, if at all possible. You can pay the credit card immediately once the charge hits if you like paying cash for everything. That doesn’t reduce your protection at all.  And always cancel problem transactions ASAP.

ethical question for the board: how much should Chief reimburse this guy? 

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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Some banks back their debit cards like a credit card. I use RBFCU and when I had some shady charges, I went directly to their fraud department and they had me review my charges for 1 year. They refunded everything I found within a day. Even one that I thought was fraud but was actually legitimate.

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21 minutes ago, hornbri said:

zero? What would he reimburse the guy anything at all?

I'm not saying you're wrong but Chief seems to be all in the middle of this guy's financial transactions so there's a strong likelihood the only reason the niece's boyfriend bought this non-existent transmission is because of Chief. The post reads like "we did this" or "we did that", but when it comes down to the money, it's "his money."

It's one thing to say, "hey why don't you look online for someone that can rebuild for transmission for less than the local prices" but something else to seemingly facilitate (innocently) the fraudulent transaction to occur.  With personal relationships, you can be ethically on the hook with bad advice.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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33 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I'm not saying you're wrong but Chief seems to be all in the middle of this guy's financial transactions so there's a strong likelihood the only reason the niece's boyfriend bought this non-existent transmission is because of Chief. The post reads like "we did this" or "we did that", but when it comes down to the money, it's "his money."

It's one thing to say, "hey why don't you look online for someone that can rebuild for transmission for less than the local prices" but something else to seemingly facilitate (innocently) the fraudulent transaction to occur.  With personal relationships, you can be ethically on the hook with bad advice.

Yep that's it in a nutshell. Like I said "no good deed goes unpunished. I'll probably just pat to get his transmission fixed. I looked on BBB, not their website reviews and it sounds like keeping people's money and not sending them a transmission is SOP.

CHIEF

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I’m sure the local cops are too busy writing traffic tickets by the thousands and filling their jail and court system with low level drug offenders to help you recover the $1,100 that was clearly stolen from you. No one makes money on this type of crime solving except you. You might try to prove me wrong though.

Bernard

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On 10/21/2020 at 2:19 PM, hornbri said:

yet another reason to use credit cards for these types of things.

Yeah, just happened to be randomly checking my Chase cc online account yesterday and saw 2 random charges via PayPal to eBay for $200+ each.  Called chase and they said no worries, we’ll deal with it.  Only issue is 4-6 days without a card, but no big deal.  They did at first ask me if I had called PayPal and I said no, I called you, and as a longtime customer, expect you to deal with it.  To which they quickly obliged.

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6 minutes ago, Bernard said:

I’m sure the local cops are too busy writing traffic tickets by the thousands and filling their jail and court system with low level drug offenders to help you recover the $1,100 that was clearly stolen from you. No one makes money on this type of crime solving except you. You might try to prove me wrong though.

Bernard

Bullshit.  They got 4 more detectives working on this.  They have them working in shifts.

 

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13 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

I have read through this entire thread, and not one plan to drive to Michigan and whoop somebody's ass.

If you hear about bodies piled up outside the door of a Michigan transmission shop on the news, you will have an idea who the culprit is.

CHIEF

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Just filed a complaint with the Michigan AG office, so at least the complaint is in the system, not sure how much will come of it. You would think that charging people over $1000 for a rebuilt transmission, and then, never delivering half of them, would be theft by check on a scale that the State would do something about it.

CHIEF

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On 10/21/2020 at 3:35 PM, CHIEF said:

Well, he called the CC company, it's his debt card, but they said it was over 60 days so they can't help. Any other ideas?

CHIEF

THIS is why you should use a credit card and pay it off rather than use a debit card.  I pretty much use the debit card for emergencies and a credit card for everything else.  There simply is not the protection, ESPECIALLY from a time perspective!!!  

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Not to pile on, Chief but that while website (Rebuilttransmissionsupply.com) looks legit, but there are some red flags to it.

  • last review from 2017
  • no address listed on the website. You would think they would list a physical location for locals
  • they use a charter.net email account
  • "saves you 75% off retail"

But even with that, they could still be legit just not internet savvy. Has anyone tried calling them from a different #? They might be ignoring your number. At this point, even getting a partial refund is better than nothing. 

FYI, their facebook links to another transmission service website https://www.atransmissions.com/  100 south river road, Bay City, MI 48722 (810) 247-8639

which a reverse search of that address gets you to yet another web page: https://www.gotallautoparts.com/  

I was thinking this might be a 100% scam, but they do appear to have had operations going when the google map car drove by: link

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/28/2020 at 1:08 PM, CHIEF said:

Just filed a complaint with the Michigan AG office, so at least the complaint is in the system, not sure how much will come of it. You would think that charging people over $1000 for a rebuilt transmission, and then, never delivering half of them, would be theft by check on a scale that the State would do something about it.

CHIEF

Well, Connor got a call from the Michigan AG's office. He will have his money back today, or tomorrow. Big kudos to the Michigan AG's office for making this happen quickly. Gonna take the transmission to a local guy.

CHIEF

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