Online payment refunds to Thai bank cards never processed and returned to the card without contacting the bank?

[tarmovannas]

I use my Thai bank debit cards (mainly SCB lately) online and abroad all the time, from time to time things get refunded back to the card -- either from online payments or while paying abroad when traveling. Every time I get something refunded back to my SCB debit card (from outside of Thailand or online, even from PayPal, when paying with the debit card via PayPal) I know it is going to be a long time (and an effort) until I see that money back on my account again, WHY? Same thing with my EU based cards takes just days, sometimes hours, to be returned on my account and I never have to contact my bank for it, but for the Thai SCB (MasterCard debit) card I have to send an email to the bank explaining all the details about the original purchase and send proof (screenshots etc) of the refund and so on, then wait for a reply, then have to call in for the customer service to "confirm my identity" and then finally some time in the future I might get my refund, the whole process can take weeks sometimes. It's absurd. Also, seems like nothing would happen if I did not chase the issue with the bank myself, seems like there would be nothing refunded if I did not go and ask about it -- this just seems weird? They don't seem to have any system for this in place either -- apart from calling into the customer service phone number, then trying to explain there what it is that you want, not certain if the person on the other side has any clue what you are talking about and can see your actual transactions. Anyone else frustrated with similar issues / know a better solution?

I've had plenty of small transactions refunded to my card which I just have not bothered to chase down with SCB and they've never been credited back to my account as far as I can tell. Also when the refunds that I have chased down finally are credited back to my account, they just appear as new credit transactions with no identification of what they are for (I can only guess), with the original debit transactions still in place on the statement, normally with other banks I never see this kind of thing on statements -- refunds are usually very clearly tied to the original transaction that the refund is for. I've even had SCB credit my account double for a certain refund transaction, only to then apparently notice their mistake 1 day later and take that money back from my account -- all the transactions clearly still in my bank statement including their mistake, with no explanation to what is going on, but it is very clear that they made a mistake refunding me double in that case and then took it back -- weird. Last year I used my SCB debit card also with an online delivery services while living in US briefly, they would always add a certain percentage (I think 20% if I remember correct) and round up when placing an order, then would refund the change later based on the actual cost of the order after its delivery -- I never got any refunds back from these transactions from what I can tell. So I've been avoiding using the SCB debit card online and abroad for payments that could need to get refunded, but from time to time it still happens of course. Any comments/insights appreciated.

[NoBrainer]

My Kasikorn shopping card works OK, although refunds from overseas vendors, or PayPal, do take about 5 to 6 days, from the time the vendor processes the credit, but I have never had to contact the bank for any reason regarding a refund/credit.

[wgdanson]

10 minutes ago, NoBrainer said:

My Kasikorn shopping card works OK, although refunds from overseas vendors, or PayPal, do take about 5 to 6 days, from the time the vendor processes the credit, but I have never had to contact the bank for any reason regarding a refund/credit.

Same for me with my Bangkok Bank card, never any problems.

[geisha]

Why do have so many refunds, are you running a buisness ?

[tarmovannas]

13 minutes ago, geisha said:

Why do have so many refunds, are you running a buisness ?

So many? Where do you get that idea? No, nothing to do with any business and not many refunds at all. This is my personal card and I am talking mainly about purchases made online, which do get refunded from time to time, for example when there is no stock or shipping delays etc, nothing I can do about that, these things happen.

 

It is very suspicious though that whenever I do have a refund made to my card it won't be credited to my card unless I contact the bank. I am currently waiting a refund made via PayPal for over 14 days now. It should take 5-7 days max and I should not have to be contacting the bank via phone/email each time.

Edited April 27, 2018 by tarmovannas

[tarmovannas]

SCB customer service told me that I should apply for a credit card if I want these types of refund issues to be automatically and quickly taken care of, and that it is their policy with debit cards that you have to contact the bank. I guess if it is a bank policy, then probably just easier to switch to a bank with better policies. I don't know of any other bank with similar policies, but anything is possible I guess. Seems like Kasikorn is the better option.

[ChrisKC]

Last week, I added my SCB debit card via eBay to pay for an item through PayPal. The payment processed in less than the blink of an eye and was acknowledged by the system including the Seller in India.

 

A day later the Seller cancelled the order because it was out of stock and I received a notification from eBay that a refund was made. I also received a notice from the Seller that the refund was made.

 

That was 8 days ago - the "case" is closed because a refund is shown to have occurred but it has not arrived at my bank from where it was taken and neither is it shown in my PayPal  account. I subsequently discovered that the SCB debit card I had entered through the eBay site was not in fact shown in my PayPal account so I re-added it there.

 

As you know, it is next to impossible to actually send an email or talk to anyone at eBay or Paypal.

 

Is it really possible that I have to wait 14 days or more or even lose the money??

 

Any tips I can use would be very helpful, thank you.

[wgdanson]

23 hours ago, tarmovannas said:

It should take 5-7 days max

But how long did it take them to take the money off your card.........seconds!

[tarmovannas]

Hey ChrisKC, by the way you describe this, I would assume that you just used your debit card during checkout on eBay (via PayPal), which means you never actually added your card to your PayPal account in that way, that is why you did not have it on your PayPal either when you checked back on there, it is not going to make any difference for this case anymore to add the card to PayPal now after the transaction is already done (again, just assuming based on your description, this is most likely what happened). I'm sure you were indeed processed a refund by eBay (for the transaction made via PayPal) back to your SCB card, but it won't show up on your PayPal account since you apparently did not use your account with the card previously linked to it to make the original transaction -- PayPal also worka as a simple payment gateway for card transactions without having to make an account or link your card. Now, based on my experience nothing will happen, since it is an SCB card, not in 14 days, not in any amount of days for that matter, you have to contact SCB customer service via email/phone and provide them all the details of what happened and ask for the refund to be processed. Good luck!

[ChrisKC]

23 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

But how long did it take them to take the money off your card.........seconds!

Less than that - a micro-second!

[ChrisKC]

1 hour ago, tarmovannas said:

Hey ChrisKC, by the way you describe this, I would assume that you just used your debit card during checkout on eBay (via PayPal), which means you never actually added your card to your PayPal account in that way, that is why you did not have it on your PayPal either when you checked back on there, it is not going to make any difference for this case anymore to add the card to PayPal now after the transaction is already done (again, just assuming based on your description, this is most likely what happened). I'm sure you were indeed processed a refund by eBay (for the transaction made via PayPal) back to your SCB card, but it won't show up on your PayPal account since you apparently did not use your account with the card previously linked to it to make the original transaction -- PayPal also worka as a simple payment gateway for card transactions without having to make an account or link your card. Now, based on my experience nothing will happen, since it is an SCB card, not in 14 days, not in any amount of days for that matter, you have to contact SCB customer service via email/phone and provide them all the details of what happened and ask for the refund to be processed. Good luck!

Thank you for that helpful reply. I think it is as you have suggested - that my card was not added through PayPal direct as I later discovered. Though my money was taken from my debit card (as shown in account activity online) immediately.

 

So if you are right, the Bank can process the transaction in one direction only?

 

At the risk of sounding naive: if a payment has been made to a Seller from my debit card at my SCB bank, why cannot it be refunded to the same place? And if not, it sounds like posting a letter with no address on it and in my case my B4,000 is orbiting in Cyberspace.

 

In any event, I have enough evidence to take to the SCB on Monday morning so my money can be shuttled back to Earth.

 

Thank you again, Chris

Edited April 28, 2018 by ChrisKC
amended wrong wording

[tarmovannas]

1 minute ago, ChrisKC said:

So if you are right, the Bank can process the transaction in one direction only?

 

At the risk of sounding naive: if a refund has been made to me to the place it was taken from why cannot it be returned to the same place? And if not, it sounds like posting a letter with no address on it and in my case my B4,000 is orbiting in Cyberspace.

 

Yes, actually transactions ARE almost always refunded back to the same source they came from, the only case where it wouldn't be refunded to the same source is if you would work out a different solution with who ever processed your card, which would not happen most of the time, 99.99% of the time the transaction is simply refunded electronically and will be returned automatically to the source it came from (AFAIK this is handled by MasterCard, VISA, etc). That was also my original topic point -- if a refund is made for an order placed with a card it should simply be returned to the same card (and/or bank account associated with it). I should not have to worry about this and I certainly should not have to be wasting my time contacting my bank, in this case SCB, every time something like this happens, it's absurd to me, but after talking to SCB customer service on the phone today, they claimed that it was their company policy (hard to believe) and suggested for me to get a credit card instead (which would guarantee a faster/automatic refunds process compared to their absurd debit card policy). Like I said, I have not experienced any other bank doing things like this. Also, from my understanding, your money is certainly not orbiting in no cyberspace, if a refund was processed by the merchant who originally charged your card, then this money is basically returned to the bank already -- it is just the bank's duty to acknowledge and confirm that and credit it back to your account -- from what I know banks like to take as long as they can with this process, since they like to hold on to any money that is "in their hands" :)

[ChrisKC]

22 hours ago, tarmovannas said:

 

Yes, actually transactions ARE almost always refunded back to the same source they came from, the only case where it wouldn't be refunded to the same source is if you would work out a different solution with who ever processed your card, which would not happen most of the time, 99.99% of the time the transaction is simply refunded electronically and will be returned automatically to the source it came from (AFAIK this is handled by MasterCard, VISA, etc). That was also my original topic point -- if a refund is made for an order placed with a card it should simply be returned to the same card (and/or bank account associated with it). I should not have to worry about this and I certainly should not have to be wasting my time contacting my bank, in this case SCB, every time something like this happens, it's absurd to me, but after talking to SCB customer service on the phone today, they claimed that it was their company policy (hard to believe) and suggested for me to get a credit card instead (which would guarantee a faster/automatic refunds process compared to their absurd debit card policy). Like I said, I have not experienced any other bank doing things like this. Also, from my understanding, your money is certainly not orbiting in no cyberspace, if a refund was processed by the merchant who originally charged your card, then this money is basically returned to the bank already -- it is just the bank's duty to acknowledge and confirm that and credit it back to your account -- from what I know banks like to take as long as they can with this process, since they like to hold on to any money that is "in their hands" :)

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am hopeful that my visit to the Bank tomorrow morning will yield the result I am looking for.