Terms and Conditions Proof.

[chuckdvc]

I am having a round with American Express over a charge back from a dishonest customer. I supplied them with a screen shot of my terms and conditions and explained that checkout wouldn't happen without the box being checked. They granted the charge back because none of this proves they accepted the terms and conditions. I have looked everywhere for some report that shows this. Without this proof the terms and conditions in Able commerce means nothing to AMEX. They told me they see these proof reports presented from other online retailers all the time.

Am I missing it? I still have time to submit a rebuttal but I need to know where to look if its even there.

[mazhar]

Well you seems to be right that we are not storing the customer acceptance of checkout terms and conditions because without accepting those conditions he/she will not be able to place the order. I have created a bug for this, you can track the progress here
http://bugs.ablecommerce.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8775

Now if the customer has placed order it means that he confirmed the Terms and Conditions. It means that we can put some code somewhere to show the terms and conditions with the order. I tested the following code by putting it on print invoice page.
Go edit your Admin/Order/Print/Invoices.aspx file and locate following code

Code: Select all

<tr>
                    <td style="width:10px;text-align:center;font-weight:bold" valign="top">
                        S O L D &nbsp; T O
                    </td>
                    <td valign="middle" width="50%">
                        <%# GetBillToAddress(Container.DataItem) %>
                    </td>
                    <td style="width:10px;text-align:center;font-weight:bold" valign="top">
                        S H I P &nbsp; T O
                    </td>
                    <td valign="middle" width="50%">
                        <%# GetShipToAddress(Container.DataItem) %>
                    </td>
                </tr>

then replace it with following code

Code: Select all

<tr>
                    <td style="width:10px;text-align:center;font-weight:bold" valign="top">
                        S O L D &nbsp; T O
                    </td>
                    <td valign="middle" width="50%">
                        <%# GetBillToAddress(Container.DataItem) %>
                    </td>
                    <td style="width:10px;text-align:center;font-weight:bold" valign="top">
                        S H I P &nbsp; T O
                    </td>
                    <td valign="middle" width="50%">
                        <%# GetShipToAddress(Container.DataItem) %>
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td valign="top" colspan="4">
                        <span style="width:10px;text-align:left;font-weight:bold">
                            Terms & Conditions You Accepted
                        </span>
                        <div style="padding:5px;">
                            <%= Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions %>
                        </div>
                    </td>
                </tr>

Now try to print preview the desired order and it will show the terms and conditions along with order showing caption that customer has accepted these condition before placing the order.

[compunerdy]

Good luck with this. I had it happen once and ended up calling the cops local to the customer and ended up with a tech savy cop who busted the guy for me.. I got a check pretty damn quick.

[chuckdvc]

Ok so if I am following you correct. There is no way to go back to a previous order and get this but it may be possible for future orders.

[chuckdvc]

Good luck with this. I had it happen once and ended up calling the cops local to the customer and ended up with a tech savy cop who busted the guy for me.. I got a check pretty damn quick.

He bought a 350.00 item , used it , damaged it, then sent it back to us under false pretenses and filed a dispute. Our Terms and conditions dont allow this but if we cant prove he agreed to it I am out 350.00.

[compunerdy]

Why is the credit card company getting in the middle of a warranty type issue? Shouldnt they only do reversals if the buyer claims to have not ordered it or something like that. Sure seems like they are over stepping their rights here.

[chuckdvc]

Why is the credit card company getting in the middle of a warranty type issue? Shouldnt they only do reversals if the buyer claims to have not ordered it or something like that. Sure seems like they are over stepping their rights here.

He told us he wanted to exchange it and he told us it was still brand new, unused and in the box. So we agreed. I then sent him an email and asked what he didn't like. He said when he mounted it it didn't work right. Right then I knew it was used and told him not to return it. At that point we had already shipped the exchange product. He said he was going to refuse the new one. He didn't and returned the first one instead. We found that the reason it didnt work right was that he failed to read the directions and loosen the set screw before trying to adjust it and actually snapped the adjustment blade off in the screw slot. I sent pictures of all this in the documentation.

We reused to refund it, he filed a dispute. And I won the first dispute. He then filed another saying he wanted the item back. I sent to him at my expense but he refused it. I supplied Amex with proof that I tried to deliver it and he refused it. It went undecided for 6 weeks. Then I get the chargeback that said I never supplied terms and conditions proof. Which they never asked for, that wasnt even what the second dispute was over. They asked for terms and conditions in the first dispute and Amex rep told me to supply a screenshot of terms and conditions, I did. I won that dispute. Now this. I will probably cease business with AMEX. Most my customers that use AMEX have another card they use anyway so I wont loose much if any business. But Amex is getting about 600.00 a month off my discount fees. Amex is being unreasonable and searched for a technicality which is unreasonable to help this guy rip me off.

[chuckdvc]

Mazhar, I got to looking at this and thinking about it. Would it not be best to have a log in the order history that documents the accepted terms and conditions just like it documents the time/date user stamp for each history entry now. All we need is an added entry.

I used to have a host and a webmaster but my webmaster of 13 years died 2 weeks ago suddenly of a heart attack. The guy who does the hosting also does software development so he has agreed to take over as webmaster for now. He is going to see what needs to be done to ad this line of documentation. Seems to be a simple fix but who am I to think that.

[mazhar]

Well it would be easy by keeping this history as order notes. For example when customer makes checkout and if Terms & Conditions for store are not empty then upon order completion add a public order note showing the customer accepted our terms and condtions in order to place this order.

Here is the code to do this, edit your ConLib/OnePageCheckout.ascx.cs file and put this code just above the closing brace of CheckedOut method.

Code: Select all

void CheckedOut(object sender, CheckedOutEventArgs e)
{
............................................................................................
............................................................................................
............................................................................................
        Order order = OrderDataSource.Load(e.OrderId);
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions))
        {
            OrderNote orderNote = new OrderNote();
            orderNote.Comment = "Customer accepted the checkout Terms & Conditions";
            orderNote.CreatedDate = LocaleHelper.LocalNow;
            order.Notes.Add(orderNote);
            order.Save();
        }
}

[chuckdvc]

Does this print the actual terms and conditions at that time in the notes? I realize some companies have huge terms and conditions but mine is only a paragraph. what Amex was telling me is that they need proof of the actual terms he agreed to at the time. They said we can change our terms and conditions anytime and there is nothing to show what they were when the customer agreed. So printing them would do that.

[mazhar]

Code: Select all

void CheckedOut(object sender, CheckedOutEventArgs e)
{
............................................................................................
............................................................................................
............................................................................................
 Order order = OrderDataSource.Load(e.OrderId);
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions))
        {
            OrderNote orderNote = new OrderNote();
            orderNote.Comment = string.Format("Customer accepted these checkout Terms & Conditions:- {0}",Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions);
            orderNote.CreatedDate = LocaleHelper.LocalNow;
            order.Notes.Add(orderNote);
            order.Save();
        }
}

The code posted in previous comment was not printing the terms & conditions but this one does. BTW this change will affect the upcoming orders. In order to put this stamp on existing order you would need to do the following edit your Admin/Order/ViewOrder.aspx file and put following code line just above the very last statement </asp:Content>

Code: Select all

<asp:Button ID="AddTermsAndConditonsNote" runat="server" 
        Text="Add Terms&Conditions Note" onclick="AddTermsAndConditonsNote_Click" />

save the file and now edit Admin/Order/ViewOrder.aspx.cs file and put following code just above the last closing brace

Code: Select all

protected void AddTermsAndConditonsNote_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions))
        {
            OrderNote orderNote = new OrderNote();
            orderNote.Comment = string.Format("Customer accepted these checkout Terms & Conditions:- {0}", Token.Instance.Store.Settings.CheckoutTermsAndConditions);
            orderNote.CreatedDate = _Order.OrderDate;
            _Order.Notes.Add(orderNote);
            _Order.Save();
        }
    }

The will make a new button avilable on view order page. So browser the desired order and then click this button and it will an order note to the order notes with terms and conditions on it having a date time equal to order creation date time.

[RichWendrock]

The problem with printing the Terms and Conditions through the Admin panel is there is no way to insure that the wording is the same as the one agreed upon by the customer. The customer can say the wording changed and you have no way to prove him wrong. I chose a different approach. Using the same formatting as the Confirmation email, I added a table header at the bottom of the email, calling it Terms and Conditions. Next I placed a short paragraph saying the fact that the customer was able to place the order confirms the customer agrees to the Terms and Conditions. Following that paragraph, I placed a section for each one of our company policies (Canceled Order Policy, Return Policy, Problems With Your Order, Lost or Stolen Packages, Warranty Policy, and Limited Chrome Warranty). Now the customer has a copy of the invoice with the exact wording of the Terms and Conditions. We receive an exact copy of the same email. The only drawback to this approach is having to maintain two copies of the Terms and Conditions. Why two copies? Because the formatting of the Terms and Conditions text in the confirmation email does not work in the popup. Therefore I had to add style coding to make the popup look similar to the confirmation email. One last note about this... with this technique. Everything is accomplished with CSS and HTML code. There is no need for code behind.

[chuckdvc]

Mazhar, with the changes in 7.0.7 will any of this work? I am already having issues with notes not working and the history showing "system" as the one who made the action instead of the one who actually did it.

[RichWendrock]

We are using
VERSION: 7.0.7.14588
MSSQL v2005
AC SCHEMA v2005
.NET CLR v2.0.50727.3634