Jamie McPartland tries to make sense of a takeaway order from a local Indian curry house.
Sitting at his desk in an office block at the Nationwide Building Society’s headquarters in Swindon, he studies the document on the screen for evidence.
Someone emailed the receipt to customer service to demand a partial refund because when his meal arrived, the poppadoms and samosas he ordered and paid for were missing.
Deciphering collection slips may not seem like a job for a bank member, but Jamie is part of a team at Nationwide that processes 1,500 such cases every week under the so-called chargeback scheme.
I’m here at Nationwide’s headquarters in the Wiltshire city to meet Jamie and the rest of the large team handling these requests.
Chargeback gives customers the right to ask their credit or debit card provider to reverse a transaction worth less than £100, up to 120 days after something goes wrong.
This could be due to goods or services they purchased that were defective, not as described, or were never delivered. The bank or building society can then withdraw this money from the retailer’s account and deposit it back into the customer’s account.
Those who paid by credit card and spent more than £100 but less than £30,000 are also similarly covered by Section 75, a vital legal protection that is part of the Consumer Credit Act.
You have 120 days to make a chargeback claim and six years to make a Section 75 claim, but you must do this as soon as you notice a fault in a product or service.
Adele Cooke visited Nationwide’s head office in Swindon to see the chargeback team at work
Banks and building societies can only make one claim, so it is essential to ensure they have as much evidence as possible
The Swindon office is a hive of activity as members of Nationwide’s 16-strong chargeback unit work together – or alone when the case is simple – to resolve customer claims. In some cases they also seek the help of a corporate lawyer.
Nationwide also has a group – separate from the recovery team – of ten legal experts who handle around 100 Section 75 cases every month.
In the corner of the room, three employees sit in a wooden garden hut-shaped meeting room, intensively discussing a case.
Most customers submit claims to the building society using an online form, but customers can also submit a chargeback or Section 75 claim by telephone, post or in a branch.
In the case of the Indian takeaway, Jamie will have to go back to the customer for more information as he only uploaded half of the receipt and did not provide important details such as dates and times when delivery took place.
He will also try to understand whether the customer has requested a refund directly from the restaurant. Under both clawback and Article 75, banks will generally only intervene if a refund request has been rejected.
Jamie will need to be armed with this information to return to the restaurant in question to argue for the chargeback.
“We only get one chance to make a chargeback claim (with the retailer), so we have to be sure this is correct the first time,” he says.
His next case is just as challenging. A Nationwide customer has filed a chargeback claim after ordering sportswear online, but when they arrived they were the wrong color.
The customer’s chargeback claim details items that arrived as “blue pants” when she had ordered black ones. Jamie will have to go back to her to find out if by “underpants” she meant leggings, shorts or skirts.
His third case already contains a lot of information from the customer – and will therefore probably proceed quickly. The Nationwide customer had ordered garden furniture, but it had not arrived weeks later.
The customer submitted a receipt confirming the purchase and a log of when he spoke with the seller to attempt to resolve the issue directly.
In a clear case like this, the team can send a claim to a retailer and get a response within a few days. But without the necessary evidence, the entire process can take up to four months.
Debbie Weston, customer service manager, says evidence is crucial when making a claim.
Customers are encouraged to take photos of items they believe are incorrect or defective
Most claims involve missing airline refunds or clothing orders arriving in the wrong size
‘The only thing we see when a purchase is made is the transaction. We don’t know what terms were agreed upon or what they signed up for,” she said.
‘If there is a problem with an article, we need to know why. Was it the wrong size? Is it damaged? Why is there a problem?’
She advised customers to always describe why there is a problem with the item or service you purchased. The more details you include in the description you give to your card provider, the less back and forth you are likely to have with them. Please state if an item is the wrong size, color or damaged, and take photos to support your claim.
Always keep emails from the retailer and keep any receipts, which should make it easier if you need to make a claim. You should also take photos if you receive the wrong item or something that is defective as these can also be used as evidence.
If you make a large purchase, always pay for part of it with your credit card. Even if you only pay a deposit with your credit card, for example when booking a holiday, the full value of the goods or services purchased will still qualify for Section 75 protection.
Most of the claims the team processes involve missing airline refunds or online clothing orders where the items arrived in the wrong size or color.
Debbie says: ‘We also see themes, for example if an airline goes bankrupt, we see a lot of claims. There is often a surge of cases around Christmas as well.’
Any credit card claims that do not meet the chargeback criteria are automatically passed to the Section 75 team, who work on a case-by-case basis.
Retailers have much longer to process a Section 75 claim than a chargeback claim, and some of the most complex cases can drag on for almost a year.
One of the biggest differences between chargeback and Section 75 is that the latter allows you to make a claim for subsequent losses resulting from the poor service or product.
For example, you can receive compensation if you are forced to leave your home and move to a rental property due to an unsafe roof repair.
There are also better protections in place if a company goes bankrupt, explains Matthew Roberts, head of the Section 75 team.
‘If a company goes bankrupt, we contact the administrators. If we cannot get the money back from the seller, we will refund the buyer ourselves.
‘As soon as a claim is received, we freeze the transaction on the customer’s credit card, deducting it from their monthly payments and freezing any interest.
‘In these cases, the user must prove whether there has been a breach of contract or misrepresentation and whether there is subsequent damage. They must also be able to confirm this with evidence.’
A breach of contract occurs when a business violates any of the agreed terms of a binding contract, including failing to deliver the correct goods or provide a service on time.
If a customer discovers a defect in a product within the first six months of purchase, it will be assumed that the problem was already present at the time of purchase and the onus is on the retailer to prove that this was not the case.
But after six months this passes from the retailer to the consumer and it is up to them to prove that the item was defective when it was purchased.
Many of the cases the team handles involve defective home repairs and cowboy builders, Matthew says.
“We get a lot of claims about solar panels,” he adds. ‘We also recently had a case where spray foam was applied to the outside of a roof.’
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on it, we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow a commercial relationship to compromise our editorial independence.