Best Practices on cancellation credit card chargebacks?

[Collin Hays]

Lately, we have been inundated with last minute cancellations, with the guest disputing the charge with their credit card company.  We are losing our appeals.  

We are able to demonstrate seemingly everything that the credit card company is asking for - the reservation details, the fact that the guest accepted our terms and conditions, and timestamps for all, including IP address.

However, the credit card companies are taking it one step further now.  Here is the new response:  

"The Terms and Conditions were not properly displayed for the cardholder during the order process or on the same screen as the checkout screen before the final checkout. The merchant also failed to provide proof that the cancellation policy was properly disclosed to the cardholder."

Frankly, it seems that the credit card companies have created a mountain too tall for us to climb. I don't know how we would ever prove, to their satisfaction, the above.  Many of our reservations are made through VRBO, and one would think that VRBO has screenshots of all of this.  They used to, and would forward them to us upon request.  NOT ANYMORE.  VRBO is completely uncooperative in this.

I am contemplating just turning each of these over to an attorney, sue for the chargeback plus legal fees, and let it go. I'm not sure what else to do. 

But if this is the new normal, it could jeopardize our very business. Any thoughts on this from the STR community?

[Patricia Andriolo-Bull]

Not sure if this will help you at this point or not but VRBO clearly spells it out.  I went into two of my listings (one with a flexible cancellation policy and one with non-refundable) and it is pretty clear what the terms are BEFORE booking.  See attachments.  Perhaps you can use something like this from your listing to show that the guest was in fact notified during booking?  I recently started using OwnerRez and have the guest sign my ow rental agreement otherwise the booking is cancelled.  There terms are clearly spelled out in my rental agreement.  They have 2 days to sign it or the booking is automatically cancelled.  That said, I have never received a charge back...knocking on wood here.