We operate a business that accepts credits cards online. A number of orders we get ever month are fraudulent, i.e. someone using a stolen credit card for example. A much smaller number are from people who use our online services, for which they pay in advance with a credit card, and then we get issued with a chargeback at some later date. In the majority of cases the amounts involved are small, maybe 50 or, but the costs of the chargeback's can easily double that figure. Clients can be located all over the world, but are mainly based in the US and Europe, including the UK.
For the amounts involved, and the fact we have greatly overworked staff (i.e. me) who just doesn't have time to chase these things, I was wondering if we can simply pass on these debts to a debt collection agency? I'd happily settle for 50% of what we were owed, providing it didn't take much time on my part to pass over the appropriate information to the agency.
I appreciate this is also a criminal matter, and I'd be more than happy to press criminal charges against these people, but often it's difficult to identify the offenders, and even if we did know who they were, how do I report a crime here in the UK committed by a German or French person against our UK business?
Would anyone care to offer some advice as to how we might proceed?
Kind Regards, Shane Cook.