Hack16.Claim Your Money Back

Hack 16. Claim Your Money Back

Under certain circumstances, Skype will refund your money for missing credits and hiccups with other services.

Works with: all versions of Skype.

Even when you do everything you can to smooth the process of paying for Skype services and use them in a reasonable way, things can go wrong.

To claim a refund, you basically have three options.

2.5.1. The No-Quibble Refund

If at any time and for any reason, you are unhappy with any Skype serviceSkypeOut, SkypeIn, or Voicemailyou can request a refund of your last subscription payment.

For SkypeOut, if you have spent less than 1 of your last subscription payment, Skype will refund the whole amount of that payment. If you have spent more than 1, Skype will refund only the balance left.

For SkypeIn and Voicemail, if you ask for a refund within 30 days of your last payment, Skype will refund the whole amount of that payment. After more than 30 days, Skype will refund only the amount remaining for your subscription on a pro rata basis.

These types of refunds take five to seven business days to appear in your online financial statements.

2.5.2. The Quibble Refund

If you are generally happy with the services provided by Skype, but there are specific issues for which you want redress, you can request a refund on a case-by-case basis. You should address such a refund by gathering your facts and presenting them clearly to Skype in the form of a support request posted at the Skype web site. If your facts are correct and your request is reasonable, Skype may very well refund your money.

In the Submit a Support Request form at www.Skype.com, you are given the option of directing your request to a specific department. Clearly, directing your request to the right department will speed up a reply. To claim your money back, you should direct your request to one of these departments, as appropriate: Refund Request, Fraudulent Charges, Incorrect Charges, or Billing.

For completeness, here is a list of Skype support departments: Billing, Error 9403, Error 9407, Error 9408, Forgotten Username, Fraudulent Charges, General, Incorrect Charges, Payment Cancelled, Payment Refused, Refund Request, SkypeIn, Suggestions, and Technical Problems.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of getting your facts straight and making only reasonable requests. If the problem is a recurring one, keep a notebook and jot down things as they happen. That way, the facts will be at your fingertips when you need them. Reasonableness is a rather squishier concept, as one person's reasonable claim is another person's outrageous imposition. However, if you were to imagine your request being read aloud in a court of law without gasps of indignation or too many raised eyebrows, you've probably struck the right tone.

Again, if your request is granted, this type of refund will take five to seven business days to appear in your online financial statements. If your request is not granted, and you still think you're in the right, you can report the problem to your credit card or online payment processing company.

2.5.3. Requesting a Charge Back

If you paid for Skype services using PayPal or a credit card and Skype has refused to refund your money, you have the option of initiating a charge back (a charge back occurs when you, the customer, try to recover your money from your financial institution, which will then, in turn, try to recover the money from Skype).

To request a charge back, someone has to have screwed up. Moreover, you must demonstrate with reasonable certainty that it wasn't you who screwed up!

Before making a charge-back request, you typically must show that you have made a good-faith effort to resolve the issue with the merchantin this case, Skype. Keep a good paper trail and be sure to do things in a timely fashion as your option to initiate a charge back might be time limited (you must typically dispute a charge within 60 days of receiving the statement on which the charge appears).

In the U.S., credit card purchases are protected under the Fair Credit Billing Act, which you can find at http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcb/fcb.pdf. You can find a consumer-friendly summary at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.htm.

For a charge back to work, you must prove that Skype has breached some contractual terms, acted in blatant bad faith, or been so outrageous that the vast majority of people would find their behavior reprehensible. Basically, you must persuade your financial institution that you are right and Skype is wrong.

This can be rather messy and can take a lot of time, in terms of both the time you waste filling out forms, making calls, and following up on things, and the time between initiating a charge back and its final conclusion. You should not enter into a charge back lightly.

To initiate a charge back you must phone or write to your financial institution and make the request. In the case of PayPal, you can initiate the charge-back process online; just log in to your PayPal account, go to the Resolution Center, and follow the instructions for filing a claim.