Chargeback Gurus' Audio Blog

In some ways, online fraud is like any other sector in the tech industry—in order to stay profitable, they have to keep innovating. It’s not always easy to extract actual cash money out of a stolen credit card number, and most fraudsters are interested in cash and not whatever random goods they can purchase before the card gets reported and blocked.

One scheme that fraudsters have come up with to maximize their ill-gotten revenue is triangulation fraud, which effectively launders stolen credit through a legitimate merchant. What can merchants do to keep from getting unwittingly entangled in triangulation fraud?

Organized, professional fraudsters don’t amass thousands and thousands of stolen credit card numbers so they can use them for online shopping sprees. They’re trying to convert a plentiful resource—compromised data—into a more valuable one: cash.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/triangulation-fraud

©Chargeback Gurus 2021
Production: Emily Woodward
Narration: Sarah Rife 

Credit card fraud remains one of the biggest problems to plague ecommerce. For the most part, consumers accept the risk, knowing that they’re protected from liability if someone uses their card without authorization. This protection comes in the form of chargebacks, and merchants end up footing the bill.

Merchants are stuck accepting true fraud chargebacks and eating the associated costs and fees. The only real way to avoid true fraud chargebacks is to identify or prevent fraudulent transactions before they can be completed. How can merchants detect credit card fraud in time to stop it from happening?

Payment cards are easy to use because you only need to transmit a few simple numbers to the bank in order to identify your account and authorize the transaction. This simplicity makes them vulnerable as well, because it’s very hard to practice rigorous data security on a few simple numbers that must be shared with the parties you’re transacting with.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/credit-card-fraud-detection

©Chargeback Gurus 2021
Production: Tyler DeLarm
Narration: Sarah Rife 

Fraud is an ever-present danger for ecommerce merchants, and true fraud chargebacks can be some of the most frustrating to deal with. Even when you've optimized your business operations to reduce merchant error chargebacks and have a good system in place for fighting friendly fraud chargebacks, true fraud can remain a persistent problem, and there's no way to fight them after the fact.

The best strategy for merchants is to follow best practices for preventing fraud and use effective and up-to-date fraud prevention tools. When merchants are struggling with fraud, how can they select the right tools for the job?

Fraud based on payment card and identity theft just keeps growing and growing in the card-not-present environment, despite significant efforts from card networks and other stakeholders to get the problem under control. In fact, 2019 was the worst year for online fraud on record. Fraud is a problem that concerns every merchant, and true fraud chargebacks are inevitable.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/fraud-prevention-tool

©Chargeback Gurus 2021
Production: Tyler DeLarm
Narration: Phil Claffey

To protect your ecommerce business from fraudsters, you need the right tools for the job. Good fraud prevention tools can identify and screen out fraudulent transactions, but there’s always a balance to be struck. If you reject orders that come with even the smallest red flags, you might reject legitimate customers. If you’re too lenient, the anti-fraud tools can’t serve their purpose. One solution is to manually review the orders that fall into this gray area. Are manual review processes the best way for merchants stop fraud and chargebacks while minimizing the risk of turning away real customers?

When you’re trying to bring down a rising chargeback rate, one of the most persistent challenges is dealing with true fraud. While friendly fraud chargebacks can be fought and won, and merchant error chargebacks can show you where you need to improve your business operations, by the time you see a true fraud chargeback it’s too late to do anything about it. The only thing you can do to beat a true fraud chargeback is prevent the fraud before it occurs.

Tools that screen for fraud during the transaction process can identify many possible fraud indicators: mismatched addresses, suspicious IP or geolocation data, strange ordering patterns—there are all sorts of red flags you can look for, and they can vary depending on the country, industry, even the individual merchant. Anti-fraud screening tools can apply rules that look for these signs and block orders that fit certain criteria, but because of the subjective nature of interpreting certain fraud indicators, they do make mistakes sometimes.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/manual-review

©Chargeback Gurus 2021
Production: Tyler DeLarm
Narration: Sarah Rife 

For consumers, few things are as frustrating as a package that never arrives. They’ve paid for it, anticipated it, waited for it…and it doesn’t show up. No matter what the cause—the carrier took it to the wrong address, thieves swiped it, it got lost under a conveyor belt somewhere—the buyer is going to want someone to make things right, and often that means they’re going to call their bank and demand a chargeback on the grounds that the merchant never delivered their order. Most carriers offer delivery confirmation, but is that really enough to protect merchants from these disputes?

“Merchandise not received” is a chargeback reason common to all the major networks, and it gets a lot of usage. It does serve an important purpose; there are plenty of fraudsters out there who will pose as legitimate merchants online, take money for orders, and never ship a single product. Unfortunately, it’s also an easy reason code to exploit for friendly fraud. For some people, working out product issues with the merchant is too much of a hassle—they’d rather just call their bank and lie about never having received the product at all.

Delivery confirmation would seem to be rock-solid evidence against this sort of chargeback, but “delivery confirmation” can mean many different things depending on the level of service you’re getting from your carrier. The confirmation methods themselves can also present some issues for merchants and customers.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/fighting-chargebacks-with-delivery-confirmation

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Sarah Rife 

It’s a little bit ironic that while cash-based transactions keep becoming increasingly less frequent, it’s never been easier to get cash. What once required an in-person transaction with a human bank teller became a self-service process at automated teller machines, and nowadays, who wants to bother hunting down an ATM that won’t charge fees when you could just get free cash back with any purchase at your local corner store? Once the exclusive domain of grocery stores, many merchants now offer cash back with a debit transaction as a convenience for their customers—but what happens when a customer asks their bank for a chargeback on a cash back purchase?

Merchants who operate brick and mortar stores and process card-present transactions are faced with the choice of whether to allow their customers to receive cash back on purchases made with their debit card. The main reason to do so is because customers like it! It’s easy and convenient, it costs them nothing, and if your store sells inexpensive sundries they may come in and buy something just because they need to get some quick cash. It can also be more convenient for merchants to reduce the amount of cash they have to deposit by converting it into card sales that will be settled electronically.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/dealing-with-cash-back-chargebacks

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Sarah Rife 

Visa is the world’s largest card network, with an annual purchase volume that exceeds $1 trillion. Nearly every merchant that accepts credit cards accepts Visa, and so it is vitally important for merchants to understand Visa’s chargeback rules, especially as they relate to fighting fraudulent chargebacks that come through the Visa network.

A solid grasp of these rules can help merchants win disputes, prevent chargebacks, and lower their chargeback rate. Of course, some of the rules are more relevant to common chargeback situations than others. What are the most important things for merchants to know about Visa chargebacks?

What are Visa Chargebacks?

When a cardholder files a dispute with the issuing bank that provides their Visa-branded credit card, the transaction becomes a Visa Chargeback, also known as a Visa Dispute. A transaction can be disputed whether it was made online, in person at a retail store, over the phone, or via mail.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/visa-chargebacks

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Phil Claffey

The very thing that makes credit cards so easy and convenient to use in so many different situations is the same thing that makes them so vulnerable to fraud. You only need to have a few key numbers to complete a credit card transaction, and in the age of ecommerce those numbers are being stored and shared constantly.

From one small act of data theft, a fraudster can potentially steal thousands of dollars. But credit card numbers don’t have to be permanent. Could the virtual account numbers that some banks are offering help to prevent ecommerce fraud and chargebacks?

A virtual account number is a lot like a tokenization scheme, but it gives the cardholder more control about when and how to make use of it. When a cardholder makes a transaction with a virtual account number, their actual card number is never transmitted to the merchant, making it impossible to steal, even if fraudsters have breached the merchant’s network defenses. Cardholders may also feel more secure using virtual account numbers with newer, smaller merchants that haven’t yet earned a trustworthy reputation.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/virtual-account-numbers

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Sarah Rife

What does the latest must-see streaming video service have in common with the subscription box companies that ship grooming supplies and cocktail ingredients on a monthly basis? They’re both relying on recurring billing to get paid for the goods they’re providing. Popular with merchants and consumers alike, subscription services are a fast-growing trend in ecommerce.

There’s just one drawback—they tend to attract a lot of friendly fraud chargebacks. When subscriptions are a major contributor to your revenue stream, this can quickly become a critical issue. What can merchants do to keep their recurring billing transactions safe from chargebacks?

Even if your entire business model isn’t built around subscription services, there can be good reasons to offer them. They can provide a regular and predictable source of revenue and give you a greater ROI on your customer acquisition efforts. Consumers like them too, for reasons such as convenience of payment and the anticipation of monthly subscription deliveries.

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/recurring-billing-chargeback

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Sarah Rife

Stripe was founded on the premise of the online economy’s potential. It is a payment platform that allows merchants to collect and customers to send payments online and via mobile. Over the years, Stripe has seen a rise in popularity due to its customizable development tools and straightforward solutions. 

While Stripe is preferred by a number of merchants for eliminating financial complexity, merchants still see a fair share of disputes. So what do you need to know to overcome your next Stripe chargeback?

Full Text:
https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/stripe-chargeback

©Chargeback Gurus 2020
Production: Courtney Freeman 
Narration: Sarah Rife