Read an interesting thread in a Legal newsroup on Usenet today.

A poster had brought an item for £325 from an online retailer using their Google checkout facility. The goods arrived 2 weeks later but were not as described and faulty. The poster attempted to contact the retailer only to find the website had gone, emails were unanswered and the postal address was fake.

He initially used the Google checkout mediation service which failed as the vendor could not be traced, he was then told by Google to continue his attempt to contact the vendor or ask his credit card company for a charge back from the vendor.

Now this is where the catch comes in.

The credit card company couldn’t issue a charge back against the vendor because the vendor wasn’t the person who charged the card.
The people who had charged the card were Google so any charge back could only be against them, but as the service google provided was money transfering and this had not been the problem, it meant the poster could not claim the money back of them either.

What in theory this means is that whenever you buy anything online via Google Checkout you automatically lose the security that credit cards provide against bad purchases.

Be aware of this next time you make an online purchase and ensure you read the small print of the Google Checkout terms and conditions.