It's not like we can capitalize on commerce in China anyway, so I think it's a fairly pragmatic approach.
If it works for my health insurance company, essentially all streaming services (including not even being able to cancel service from abroad), and many banks, it’ll work for you as well.
Surely bad actors wouldn’t use VPNs or botnets, and your customers never travel abroad?
The blocks don't stay in place forever, just a few months.
The only way of communicating with such companies are chargebacks through my bank (which always at least has a phone number reachable from abroad), so I’d make sure to account for these.
Visa/Mastercard chargeback rules largely apply worldwide (with some regional exceptions, but much less than many banks would make you believe).
I have first-hand experience, as I ran a company that geoblocked US users for legal reasons and successfully defended chargebacks by users who made transactions in the EU and disputed them from the US.
Chargebacks outside the US are a true arbitration process, not the rubberstamped refunds they are there.
What's true is that in the US, the cardholder can often just say "I've never heard of that merchant", since 3DS is not really a thing, and generally merchants are relatively unlikely to have compelling evidence to the contrary.
But for all non-fraud disputes, they follow the same process.
Again, you're not aware of the reality outside the US.
That's true, but "fraud" and "compliance" aren't the only dispute categories, not by far.
In this case, using Mastercard as an example (as their dispute rules are public [1]), the dispute category would be "Refund not processed".
The corresponding section explicitly lists this as a valid reason: "The merchant has not responded to the return or the cancellation of goods or services."
> Again, you're not aware of the reality outside the US.
Repeating your incorrect assumption doesn't make it true.
[1] https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/n...
a) a Refund Not Processed chargeback is for non-compliance with card network rules,
and b), When the merchant informed the cardholder of its refund policy at the time of purchase, the cardholder must abide by that policy.
We won these every time, because we had a lawful and compliant refund policy and we stuck to it. These are a complete non-issue for vendors outside the US, unless they are genuinely fraudulent.
Honestly, I think you have no experience with card processors outside the US (or maybe at all) and you just can't admit you're wrong, but anyone with experience would tell you how wrong you are in a heartbeat. The idea you can "defeat" geoblocks with chargebacks is much more likely to result in you losing access to credit than a refund.
It's quite possible that both of our experiences are real – at least I'm not trying to cast doubt on yours – but my suspicion is that the generalization you're drawing from yours (i.e. chargeback rules, or at least their practical interpretation, being very different between the US and other countries) isn't accurate.
Both in and outside the US, merchants can and do win chargebacks, but a merchant being completely unresponsive to cancellation requests of future services not yet provided (i.e. not of "buyer's remorse" for a service that's not available to them, per terms and conditions) seems like an easy win for the issuer.
I'm very open to a different perspective if it's grounded in reality. I'm only judging you on your comments, which to date have been factually inaccurate (to the point that I wonder if you're trolling?),
> Both in and outside the US, merchants can and do win chargebacks,
At vastly different rates (~10% vs ~80%)
> but a merchant being completely unresponsive to cancellation requests of future services not yet provided (i.e. not of "buyer's remorse" for a service that's not available to them, per terms and conditions)
Geoblocking a region is not being unresponsive and will not result in a breach of network rules. Lots of precedent and completely uncontroversial but yet you believe otherwise.
> seems like an easy win for the issuer.
Seems is the operative word here, but it only seems so from your uninformed position. Even after quoting the MC terms that show that you're incorrect, you're still not open to new information.
Is that your observed rate or an industry-wide trend?
If it's the former, I'll stick with my theory – you're extrapolating from a pretty specific scenario to a different one. My guess would be that you're conflating geoblocking of content (what you seem to have experience with) with geoblocking of the cancellation method (what this thread is about).
If it's the latter, you're wildly off base:
> Merchants win an average of 50% of representments, though there are differences by country: U.S.: 54%, U.K.: 49.1%, AU: 46.7% and Brazil: 36.9%.
(from https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/Insights/20...)
In fact, this is the opposite of what you're claiming (i.e. a higher win rate for merchants outside the US).