Popular Retail Site Spotlights Our State of Chargebacks 2018 Report
Chain Store Age recently featured data and other insights from our State of Chargebacks 2018 report published earlier this year.
As the site pointed out, friendly fraud hits eCommerce merchants hard. Chargebacks cost retailers $19.4 billion in 2017, and as our data shows, most of that sum is friendly fraud.
The Vicious Cycle of Chargebacks
Chargebacks work like a feedback loop for fraud. Merchants focus on the wrong threat source, leave friendly fraud unaddressed, thus encouraging customers to commit friendly fraud. As Chargebacks911 COO Monica Eaton explains, “Merchants have a habit of focusing on criminal fraud while writing off chargebacks as a cost of doing business to keep customers happy.”
The result: customers grow accustomed to a “no questions asked” chargeback process. They’re disconnected from how chargebacks affect merchants. “In some cases, consumers may not even realize they’re stealing from merchants; they just assume a chargeback is an easy, non-confrontational way to score a refund,” Monica explains.
