> To solution to coercing a “reversal” of a transaction is use the legal system.
Or, just maybe, we could have a system which doesn't need to involve the legal system every time, and protects consumers anyway.
Which we have.
You omitted the part where this solution requires a surcharge of ~3% on every single transaction we make with our credit cards.
In a civilized society, this is how transactions work:
You research the merchant and judge whether they are trustworthy. You decide they are, and purchase an item from them. If you have a problem with the item, you request a refund. They ask for the product back, and then they send you the refund.
Nothing in the above paragraph requires a credit card processor to enable a reversal of funds.
If they refuse to provide a refund, that is their choice, but relying upon a central god-like money authority to judge whether they made the "correct" one is bonkers. That's under jurisdiction of the law.
In your civilised society I will never, ever use a new merchant or a small merchant. One vendor that promises easy refunds would be the only place I would ever shop. Small vendors and new vendors can go hang. Hell, it might just kill internet shopping all together.
In your civilised society, small business is f*cked.
In your civilised society a person who has been ripped off by a merchant who refuses to deal with them or just plain disappears, has to spend time and more money dragging them through the courts, if they can even find them.
Your ‘civilised’ society is carte blanche for unscrupulous merchants to rip people off, something which humanity has been dealing with since the dawn of history.
We have these systems in place for a reason, and it’s to stop uncivilised merchants from doing what they’ve been doing as long as merchants have existed.
You don’t have to take credit cards, by the way, but don’t expect my business if you don’t.
What if that merchant was your friend? Or someone you knew personally? What if the merchant was recommended by someone you trust, like how small business has worked for millenia?
Otherwise, yes, you're right, you shouldn't buy things from people you don't know and/or don't trust, even with the ability to request a chargeback. That should never change.
> We have these systems in place for a reason, and it’s to stop uncivilised merchants from doing what they’ve been doing as long as merchants have existed.
No, that's not at all why these systems are in place. They would never have come to be had the U.S. Congress not passed the Fair Credit Billing Act in 1974 [1], which essentially outlined the mechanics of chargebacks, amongst other billing "errors".
To boot, consumers aren't a blameless party here. Fraud has existed on both sides of transactions since trading was a thing.
