WeChat is aggressively promoting its WeChat Wallet service, but when MyBroadband tested the mobile payment platform, it failed in a spectacular way.
MyBroadband signed up for a WeChat Wallet and loaded a credit card on the system for online payments.
WeChat and Stuff magazine were running great promotions to encourage consumers to use WeChat Wallet – giving us a chance to test the system.
We purchased an iPad Air at a big discount and the WeChat Wallet screen indicated the transaction was successful.
However, shortly afterwards a message from Incredible Connection popped up, saying the transaction failed.
The WeChat Wallet transaction history also showed “Purchase from Incredible Connection – Payment Cancelled”.
We checked the bank statement, and the payment had gone through. An amount of R5,249 was deducted from the credit card, with the description “SnapScan Incredible ConSandton ZAA”.
We received no product ordering confirmation and no other information regarding the transaction.
This means the money was lost and it now became our responsibility to get it back.
We called Incredible Connection and it confirmed there was no order from the specific WeChat Wallet or client.
It said it was not possible to do much other than log a complaint, because there was no transaction code.
The Incredible Connection helpdesk promised to call back to resolve the issue within 24 hours. This did not happen.
Official comment from WeChat and Incredible Connection
Incredible Connection said “sometimes where a product purchase reflects as successful on the WeChat Wallet, it doesn’t reflect on the Incredible Connection back-end”.
This means a person who paid for a product using WeChat Wallet has their money taken, but the order is not logged with Incredible Connection.
MyBroadband contacted WeChat regarding the problem and the company promised to shed light on the issue.
However, it did not provide feedback on how often this type of problem occurs, what clients should do when this happens, or what it is doing to resolve the issue.
