We have had multiple customers complain that our refunds, which we have done as "Refund by Reference" where possible, have gone to cards that they say have been cancelled. Windcave says that the refund by reference should be clever enough to be transferred to a new card (new number or expiration date) connected to the same account (i.e. bank), but these customers claim that they have cancelled the cards in question and closed their accounts with the bank in question. It's entirely possible that the customers believe that they have cancelled the cards but haven't, either in error or because the bank in question is being sleazy, but I don't know what tools we have to research this, and we can't ask our customers to do so (indeed, many of them likely lack the wherewithal). Has anyone else come across this issue or have any tips?
I'm bumping this with very important news: we now have a customer who was able to confirm to us that their money was refunded to a closed account. They had previously both cancelled the card in question and closed their account altogether with the bank (BofA), but after a "long conversation" the bank admitted that they had received the money and offered to write them a check for the amount. I fear many of our other customers will not be able to get this resolved, and of course we have no idea how many times this has actually happened without the customer doing a significant amount of research for us, but we're looking at 4 reported cases, I believe.
I don't see how we can use Refund by Reference in the future if it allows something like this to happen.
I wanted to chime in here to let you know that we are in communication with the payment providers about this issue. We will keep you updated as we learn more. It is important to note that Refund by Reference protects a merchant from fraud liability by ensuring refunds are issued to the card used for the original transaction and limiting the refund to the original transaction amount.
Tami Fox said:by ensuring refunds are issued to the card used for the original transaction and limiting the refund to the original transaction amount.
Except, of course, when they aren't. And it doesn't protect against a bad actor in the box office because there are too many scenarios that require a refund to an account to remove this functionality from box office personnel. It basically only protects against accidentally double-refunding a full order amount.
It's definitely a convenience for the box office, but it's now a nightmare for the customers who have lost their money to closed accounts. I think it's a great idea in theory, but the theory falls apart because it requires banks to choose to behave properly, with no (negative) consequences if they don't.
Is there any update on this?
We are very interested in any update on this as well. Similar to Gawain, we were assured that if a refund by reference is successful, it will get to the customer even if they closed the card. The scenario Gawain describes is a big concern, particularly given the number of refunds we are all doing these days. Thank you!
Hi everyone,
I’d like to provide status and clarify further what is happening in the cases that we’ve researched for members reporting this issue.
When the refund is requested and the patron has cancelled the card being targeted by the refund, the card's issuing bank is responsible for appropriately responding to transaction requests against that cancelled card, such as refunding a payment by reference. Refund by reference is a security measure to ensure that funds can only be processed back to the original card used for the transaction, as noted by Tami in her post.
In the cases we researched, even though the patron has cancelled the card, the issuing bank accepted the refund request instead of declining and reversing it so that the funds can be sent to an updated or different card. Tessitura and the Payment Providers, such as Windcave or WorldPay, do not oversee the cancellation of the card, and cannot obtain information about the status of the card before requesting the refund by reference.
We have had extensive conversations with our Payment partners to discuss what options there are, and unfortunately the issue rests between the patron and their card issuer. Patrons will need to contact their card issuer directly to obtain their refund.
If you believe your patrons have experienced this problem, or any other issues with refunds, please submit a support ticket to hello@tessituranetwork.com so that we can thoroughly investigate the problem.
Many thanks,
Chris SzalajProduct Owner, Business Facing ProductsTessitura Network
Hi Gawain,
We're currently dealing with a refund that went through for a patron who no longer has a relationship with the issuing bank. As a result, they haven't received the money and at the moment, they haven't had success reaching the bank by phone - the bank isn't taking the calls for some reason.
What role did staff at your organization take to help the patron that ran into this? Did they help try to reach the bank on their behalf and perhaps help explain what happened?
Also, I'm curious if you have run into more of these since you started this thread? I suspect there are others that we just haven't heard about yet, particularly given the high volume of refunds we are doing right now.
Thanks,
David
I think at least 4 cases were reported to us, which is the only way we can discover it (whether there might have been a few more, if it was the tip of an iceberg we have no way of knowing). We have one customer constitutionally unable to rectify this themselves, one who did, but reported having to go to great lengths to do so, and one who flat out refused to call their previous (and apparently much hated) bank when we suggested it. I don't know where the other or others lie. I'm pretty sure we've not made any offers to try and intervene: I've left it with the Box Office for now, and haven't had a chance to check in with them on it.
Does this apply for refunds processed via the payment screen in a ticket order?
Yes: that's generally what we were discussing.