Reg E Dispute--cardholders spouse used card

We have a cardholder who has disputed quite a few transactions and today we received a chargeback for one of the items (others will soon follow, I'm sure) and learned that the person who placed the order with the merchant was the cardholder's spouse. We know this because the merchant provided the invoice for sold/ship to. Can we charge this back to the customer? If he insists she was not authorized to use his card and did so anyway, what are our rights?

Was the final credit issued?

I think you still have to honor the credit, but you are in a position of financial loss due to unauthorized use of a debit card, so you should have legal recourse in the form of charges filed against the spouse.

Is the spouse also on the card, or just the first spouse?

If the products were ordered by the wife and shipped to their house, I would say these are not unauthorized transactions:

205.2(m)Unauthorized electronic fund transfer means an electronic fund transfer from a consumer's account initiated by a person other than the consumer without actual authority to initiate the transfer and from which the consumer receives no benefit.

We gave provisional credit, but I have not processed the chargeback against our customer. The account is in the cardholder's name only. I would not have a problem with this situation IF this particular customer had not done the same thing no less than eight times in the last year because he knows he can get away with it. If it were up to me, the account would be closed and that would be the end of it.

Can you at least take away his card? I think your bank needs to cut it's losses.

I agree with Duchess, burn the darn card!!! Also, I'd explain to the cardholder that we have sufficient proof to know who is doing the fraudulent activity and that the Bank will be pressing charges against this individual.

I did close the card and told him he would not be getting a new one.

And, as Randy stated in his earlier post, the card member should have received no benefit. If there's any indication he did, you may want to consider legal action against him for filing a false claim.

At the very least, I'd take away card privileges (and notate the account with some kind of WARNING message), but I'd be looking to close the account relationship altogether.

Outside of closing the account, since they are moto/internet get an affidavit from the cardholder and still process the chargeback. If merchant represents, get an updated letter from the cardholder after he reviews and signs that the merchandise was sent to his home, and go back out against the merchant or if CH will not provide an updated letter and since the merchant's documentation shows the merchandise was delivered to his home address, I agree with rlcarey that you can show he cardholder benefited from the purchase and they are not unauthorized.

I would prefer the chargeback method as it will most likely cause the cardholder with additional agony advising the merchant will most likely go after the spouse for the theft of goods or submit to a collection company and his address could potentially be flagged by the shipping company (Fed-x, UPS or USPS) as a fraud address making future deliveries tougher to get.