Ask HN: Transfer(wise) refuses to process a dispute claim. Any recourse?

[unsupp0rted]

I used my (Transfer) Wise Mastercard to purchase a pair of earbuds in Turkey at a major retailer (think Barnes & Noble). I tried them for a day and then tried to return them.

The ANC on the earbuds makes it so that I can barely hear the other person and they can barely hear me.

The retailer refused to refund the money. They sent them to another city for testing and said they're fine.

I filed a dispute 5 weeks ago and heard nothing from Wise. Now I've called them and they said my dispute was rejected by Wise.

Do I have any recourse? It's not the $60 loss that hurts. I like using Wise and I've been a customer for years, but if I have zero protection by using their card, then I'll stop using it.

> Upon checking on the attachments you've sent, unfortunately, we cannot do anything on our end since the merchant claimed that the stuff you purchased is working fine and not defective.

> Unfortunately, upon checking the attachments you submitted, we have no choice but to accept the seller's statement that the items you bought are in good condition and not damaged.

So they'd rather believe a merchant in Turkey over their long-time customer.

[ggm]

After reviewing your ask HN, I have determined that merchants in all economies are subject to remarkably high rates of fraud, and if Wise are balancing risk here I applaud that.

In other economies, you do have recourse to "I changed my mind" but some appliances which are worn are not subject to this rule because it's really gross to have to accept back perfectly working goods covered in earwax.

They way you worded it is completely unclear if the ANC is actually faulty. if you were equally unclear in the complaint, I might be in "works as described" space and agree you have no recourse.

Was the device faulty? What was the specific fault? Was it that the ANC was too good? Is there no switch to turn ANC off?

What if this is an impedence mismatch between your ears, and Xaoimi's technology?

[unsupp0rted → ggm]

I bought a thing with ANC for the ANC. It turns out that when I'm making calls the other person says I'm muffled and they can't make out what I'm saying. They sound equally muffled to me. Perhaps it's my mouth, vocal cords, or distance from mouth to ear that is faulty and not the device.

I've processed many tens of thousands of dollars through Wise. Now they've balanced their risk on a $60 purchase into not having me as a customer anymore.

[ggm → unsupp0rted]

It sounds (hah) like the device has a bad model for the one you're using it in. Given you can't get a refund, it would be interesting to see if it works in other devices better. the conversion of the barrel plug from one, to two, then three, and four, makes for some "interesting" problems in how they disambiguate the microphone from audio signal in the plugging. I have from time to time had to use intermediary cables which separate out the functions: a Rode+ microphone for instance I simply could not directly plug into my devices.

My guess is they inverted the logic of tip and ring: the muffled sound may be that its leakage across, not actually the prime signal.

But that said, if you can turn off ANC and it works fine, then yes: its about something else which can include its bust.

[ffhhj]

I bought 3 expensive HP headsets, these were different models I gave to some family members, so they could differentiate them. Only one of them worked right, the others had muffled/low volume and adapter problems. It seems the only way to buy the right audio set is thru recommendations from others that have tried them before. I was able to get my money back for one of these only.