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Yahoo Music billed me for another year of their music service without my permission.  They refused to refund my money so I turned to my last line of defense, my credit card company.

Credit Cards have a bad reputation.  Some of it is deserved.  Like alcohol and casinos, credit cards are bad for certain people.  However, in responsible hands, credit cards are a useful financial tool.

I wrote an article, Ten Reasons to use a Credit Card for Every Purchase, about why I use credit cards for most of my purchases. My recent experience with Yahoo Music just reinforced my beliefs.

It's Hard to Deal with Companies Today

Many merchants today, brick and mortar or online, are hard to deal with. Many of them have draconian exchange and return policies. These policies are the result of dishonest people defrauding merchants. Businesses aren't stupid, they've cracked down and now the honest person has to pay the price.

I find dealing with small business is usually easier than dealing with large corporate entities like Yahoo. In a big corporation, no one person is responsible to the customer. That's the reason customer service is so terrible today. No one cares about the customer.

Yahoo Sucks

So what happened with Yahoo Music? I purchased Yahoo Music Jukebox last year. Or rather I renewed the license. I had been using MusicMatch Jukebox for several years. It seemed to work well, for a while at least. It's a long saga, so I'll cut to the good parts. MusicMatch Jukebox has gone downhill and now it's been discontinued by Yahoo in favor of Rhapsody.

MusicMatch was pretty good when it first came out and I've paid for licensing several times. However, once MusicMatch was sold to Yahoo, many things changed. I could no longer access some of music I used to listen to. Also, I couldn't reliably connect to the radio service. I work in the hub of the internet in my state, if I can't connect; it's because of the website, not because of my connection.

I tried to cancel my Yahoo Jukebox account but it didn't seem to work. I was billed for the service again. I contacted Yahoo about the billing problem. Yahoo advised me that they don't give refunds so I was out of luck. Have a nice day!

At that point, I'd had enough; I was paying for a crappy service that didn't work. I contacted my credit card company and described the situation. They begin the disputes resolution process.

Wells Fargo to the Rescue

Disputes resolution is a fancy term that means figuring out if you got screwed or not. The credit card company (Wells Fargo) immediately credited the charges back to my card while they researched the issue.

Credit card companies have charge back rights in certain situations.  It means just what you think; they can charge the money back to the merchant.  It's easier for them to do this when the credit card is not present (like in online purchases).

After a few months I received a letter in the mail stating that Yahoo's bank had agreed to return the money.  Finally I'm done with Yahoo Music and everything is settled.

Put the Credit Card Companies to Work for You

So that's why I use a credit card for every purchase, especially online. PayPal isn't going to protect you like that (unless you use a credit card). If you're using checks you need to step into this century and start using credit cards.

Put the credit card company to work for you. You'll get piece of mind and you'll have leverage against the big heartless corporations who just don't seem to care anymore.

Do you have experience with bad merchants?  Were you aware of the disputes resolution process?  Are you a merchant who's been burned in the past?  Leave your story in the comments below.

Tags    chargeback    Consumer Protection    Credit Cards    dispute resolution    yahoo

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