Good afternoon everybody.

We have a client who is disputing monthly billing from a service he admitted to signing up with for a free trial of a product. The client claims he was unaware that this would result in a subscription account.

We have contacted a phone number in the transaction description on our host system and the merchant confirmed this client has an account with them and said it is a subscription based service. After a little prodding, we managed to get terms of service from the merchant annnnd, some of the details don't exactly match up with the charges processed to our client's account. The merchant name and phone number on the document do not match the transactions and while the initial "free trial" shipping charge looks correct in amount, the subsequent auto-renewals also processed for a different dollar amount than what was specified in the terms of service.

Since our client disputed on the basis that the monthly renewals were unauthorized, are we still liable for this dispute since the information we were provided does not really match the subscription that our client is being charged? Or is confirmation of a subscription account from the merchant sufficient evidence to deny on the grounds that the transactions were, in fact, authorized? Note that the website the merchant provided also does not require you to mark on your original order form that you have agreed to terms and conditions; the agreement is implied with the order.

The customer's failure to review what they were agreeing to prior to clicking "Submit" is not the bank's problem. If you waste time and effort on a chargeback, you will receive a representment in 30-45 days with proof of shipping to the customer's home along with another copy of the terms and conditions.

Deny based on your discussion with the merchant and the customer's admission that they authorized the small shipping and handling charge when they made their initial purchase.

That's what we were leaning toward as well but wanted a second opinion from another compliance expert before moving forward since the TOS we received were not a perfect match to what was billed.

If he has not received the recurring shipments or if he wants to dispute the difference between the amount billed and TOS, I take it that either of those dispute reasons may be worth submitting a claim since there would be more of a case there, but if he has an account we can't say that transactions were not authorized.