Chargebacks911® COO Monica Eaton’s New Guest Feature for Toolbox
The COVID-19 shut down earlier this year led to a sudden, unanticipated surge in eCommerce activity. Of course, while that’s good news for merchants in general, it also led to an increase in chargeback activity. In her new guest feature for Toolbox, Monica Eaton explains how businesses can fight back and protect their bottom lines.
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As Monica explains in the post, much of the chargeback activity we’ve seen in recent months can be traced to friendly fraud. This is a nefarious threat source because, in many cases, the perpetrators may not even know they did anything wrong.
“Friendly fraud occurs when a customer files a chargeback instead of first trying to obtain a refund from the merchant,” Monica explains. “An authorized cardholder can dispute a legitimate charge to their credit card. This pushes the bank to force a refund under the pretense that the merchant made a mistake.”
Fortunately, merchants do have some recourse. They must first learn to separate chargeback based on their true source: merchant error, criminal fraud, or friendly fraud. Once this accomplished, they can deploy the strategies necessary to protect the business.
“Unfortunately, even with the best tools and procedures in place, merchants are still susceptible to chargebacks resulting from criminal fraud or inadvertent errors. Therefore, it’s still necessary to consistently perform manual reviews on every chargeback to cover all bases and determine which cases can be fought.”
