14 December 2016
Warning: credit card chargebacks and risky online investments
The New Zealand Bankers’ Association today supported the Banking Ombudsman’s warning that you shouldn’t expect to be
reimbursed for authorised credit card payments to risky binary options trading websites.
“Once you’ve authorised an online payment with your credit card to a binary options trading website, you can’t expect to
get a chargeback if the trade doesn’t go your way. The same applies to any credit card payments you make online that you
have authorised,” says New Zealand Bankers’ Association chief executive Karen Scott-Howman.
Binary options are a high-risk form of investment where you can make or lose money by predicting whether the value of a
share, commodity or currency will go up or down within a certain time.
Binary options trading websites use credit cards to take payments to set up a trading account.
Credit card payment reimbursements, or chargebacks, may be available in the case of disputed payments. Chargebacks may
occur in cases where the payment was not authorised by the card holder, or the goods were either not received or
defective, or if the payment was incorrect or duplicated.
“It’s important to be very clear what you’re signing up to when providing your card details to these websites. Once
you’ve authorised the payment, and you get the service you’ve paid for, you can’t get your money back,” says
Scott-Howman.
More information about credit and debit card chargebacks is available on the Banking Ombudsman’s website:
ENDS