Have We Answered All Your Questions?

No, we take the pain out of chargeback management and chargeback prevention so that you don't ever have to lift a finger.

Our FPR-360 portal integrates with your payment processor, CRM and gateway to gather all of the information related to chargebacks you receive.  Our team of analysts then compile the evidence needed to win the case and send it over to your bank.

The only communication we require is an initial assessment for us to better understand your business.  And if you like, we can schedule monthly or quarterly meetings with you to review our performance.

Our team is dedicated to making your life easy; our goal is to help you minimize your chargebacks and fight them effectively to ensure maximum recovery.

Our team is available 5 days a week and can be reached via phone, email or Skype.  Our goal is to respond to all your queries in less than 24 hours, in many cases we are able to respond within 2-6 hours.

Here are the four advantages:

1. One portal to manage chargebacks, Verifi CDRN Notifications and Ethoca Alerts
2. Gurus manage your alerts, refund the transaction and blacklist customer within 24 hours
3. You pay ONLY for unique alerts. Never pay for alerts raised by both providers.
4. Our No-Chargeback guarantee protects you in event your alert turns into a chargeback.

The first tip to improve your recovery rate is of course to fight the chargeback, though the majority of merchants do not challenge all chargebacks. The first step to fighting a chargeback, is to research the reason code which explains the reason for the chargeback and the required compelling evidence to dispute it.

Then, prepare compelling evidence which may include process for consumer identification, emails or phone calls about the order, POD -  tracking numbers that confirm delivery, etc.

You should maintain dispute templates for each reason code and include your intent to fight the chargeback and why.

You must submit your response packet prior to the expiration date that is set by your payment processor, some of which only allow 5-10 days to respond to a chargeback claim. If that seems like a lot, it is. You likely will find that if you're experiencing more chargebacks than 0.5% to 1% chargeback ratio, you should consider a chargeback representment company, like Chargeback Gurus.

If a customer reaches out to a merchant seeking a refund, the merchant's rapid response in satisfying the customer will generally prevent a chargeback from being filed. It is essential merchants have easy-to-reach and well-trained customer service reps, who can often prevent a chargeback, and perhaps keep a customer for life.

While the merchant may or may not receive the purchased goods back in a return, the refund should prevent the customer from contacting their credit card company to file a chargeback, unless the customer is a fraudster looking to double dip.

Merchants who try and monitor their chargeback issues in-house will often get burned on double dip fraud, because they don't have the semi-automated tools and human review that will issue chargeback alerts. They often don't have the time or resources to analyze transactions, refunds and the customer service documentation to determine if double dipping has occurred.

A consumer who is promised a refund may be expecting it the next day, though it may take you 5-10 business days to process the refund. By then, they've already contacted the issuing bank and asked for a chargeback. Human review is essential, as the fraudsters may also request a partial refund from the merchant, and then file a full chargeback - a scheme that will not be caught on simple fully automated systems since the transaction amounts are different.

Merchants should educate the consumer on when they can expect to see the refund posted to their account and provide a copy of the original transaction and a refund receipt.  Doing so can prevent honest customers from thinking the refund was not issued and filing a chargeback.

When it comes to chargebacks, avoiding hassle and short-term costs aren't the only issues. This is also about protecting your reputation and improving your processes. Failing to fight chargebacks could lead to serious costs and consequences such as chargeback fees, increase in merchant account fees, your bank placing a hold on your reserve funds or terminating your merchant account.

If you have all the compelling evidence necessary to fight chargebacks, you should submit the dispute documents to your processor and fight them. It is important to note that you should accept all chargebacks that are either valid or appear to be true fraud.

A customer calls their credit card issuing bank and gives a reason for a chargeback, factual or fraudulent. The bank then notifies the processor and the processor notifies the merchant about the chargeback.

The merchant has 10-30 days to dispute the chargeback, depending on their processor. If the merchant decides to fight the chargeback, they must compile the necessary compelling evidence to prove that the merchant has delivered the product/service as per the terms stipulated during the buy process.

The merchant then sends a response packet that includes: necessary compelling evidence for the reason code, all documentation that is available for that customer and why they are disputing the chargeback. The documents are then sent to the acquiring bank and a temporary reversal is issued to the merchant.

The acquiring bank then sends the documents to the issuing bank who will further review the documents and decide if they agree with the merchant or if they decided to favor the customer.

If the customer is favored, the reversal made will be revoked, the issuing bank will file a pre-arbitration case and from there the merchant can decide if they want to accept the revoked decision or continue with the dispute process.  Once a case is referred to the Card Association for review the losing party will be responsible for paying the fees during this process.

The initial decision is made by the Acquiring Bank when you submit the dispute documents. The documents are then sent to the Issuing Bank for review, if they do not agree with the dispute documents submitted, then the dispute can be continued through the pre-arbitration process and the Card Association will determine the outcome.

Sometimes the Issuing bank might agree with the document submitted by the merchant, but the customer might not agree with the decision to reverse the chargeback and, at that time they can pressure their issuing bank to continue the dispute by filing a pre-arbitration case.

Pre-arbitration proceedings, sometimes known as pre-arbs, occur when a cardholder or an issuing bank continues the disputed transaction. Although the ruling fell in favor of the merchant the first time, the merchant almost never wins on a second reversal. While new and compelling evidence can potentially aid a merchant, it is often difficult to muster new information for an existing case.

The first thing you should do when facing pre-arbitration is review the evidence presented in the original chargeback case. Additional forms of documentation can be of value. For example, have you spoken to the customer on the phone, and kept detailed notes of those conversations? Do you now have a detailed and signed confirmation of receipt that you didn't have before? Whether you’re a new merchant or an experienced hand, dealing with pre-arbitration can be a hassle you don’t need.

This is where hiring professionals can be a helpful solution. At Chargeback Gurus, we know our way around a chargeback and can help you to effectively assess the evidence for a pre-arbitration case.

If you lose on a pre-arbitration ruling but still want to contest the case, you can continue the dispute by going to arbitration, which is the final step in the chargeback dispute process. It must be filed within 45 calendar days from when the original chargeback was finalized and must include an overview of the dispute in chronological order as part of a Completed Arbitration Document, signed by the principal contact.

There are significant fees associated with the arbitration process, which will be assessed to the losing party, as much as $500+. The best way to fight an arbitration is to avoid one, by winning the pre-arbitration.  It is important to note that in most cases it is not wise to continue the dispute process to pre-arbitration and on to arbitration because the costs can outweigh the potential recovery.

As previously stated, without a significant amount of new documentation confirming the order, processing and proof of delivery, the odds of winning a pre-arb or arbitration are slim, especially if handled in-house. Even chargeback associates within your company are generally ill-prepared for the nuances, documentation and time-frame required for pre-arb and arbitration.

Note: Chargeback Gurus does not recommend entering this process for small dollar amounts because the potential fees outweigh the benefits.

Every chargeback will include a reason code, a numerical identifier of why the consumer has filed the chargeback. While the different Card Networks use different reason codes, each has a specific set of numbers it uses to tell the merchant why the chargeback has been filed.

Though the industry has discussed reducing the number or reason codes, there are currently dozens. Examples of what the codes indicate are: Services Not Provided or Merchandise Not Received; Not As Described; Never Ordered; Fraudulent Processing of Transaction; Cancelled Recurring Transaction; or Expired Card.

American Express is different from Visa and MasterCard since they are both a card network and its own issuing bank.  They are the financial institution that issues its own card to consumers.

Thus, when a card member requests a chargeback, Amex already has important information available, and immediately reviews the request. Amex then either: Determines the transaction in question to be a valid charge and dismisses the case, sends an inquiry to the merchant for more information or most likely, issues an immediate chargeback.

The majority of Amex chargebacks are awarded to the card member without inquiry. Numerous inquiries to any one merchant will reduce the chance of that merchant winning any future chargebacks, as Amex will at some point immediately rule against that merchant.

In the event the merchant receives an inquiry, they have 20 days to respond with enough compelling evidence for Amex to reverse the chargeback in the merchant’s favor.

Compiling and properly documenting all the necessary compelling evidence in the form and format the different Card Associations and banks, is often a tall task for in-house chargeback staff to manage.

Some of the compelling evidences we recommend are:

1. Order Invoice
2. Transaction Receipt
3. IP Address Location
4. Proof of Delivery
5. AVS/CVV Match
6. Customer Service Notes if any
7. Product Usage Report (For Digital Goods)
8. Partial/Full Refund Receipt if Provided
9. Social Media Link if you see customer posting picture of the product
10. Explanation Letter stating why you are fighting this chargeback

Often you might receive chargebacks which has different chargeback and transaction amount because the customer might decide to dispute a partial transaction amount rather than a full amount.

This happens if the customer thinks they were billed a wrong amount or if a partial credit was issued by the merchant and they are looking for a full credit.

You should expect at least 1.5 to 1 ROI when evaluating your chargeback representment company. If you spend $1,000 a month, you should see a return of at least $1,500.

Chargeback Gurus offers a Guru Guarantee on all our services. We provide the merchant with frequent reports that show what we've recovered for a client along with extensive chargeback trend reports to assist in reducing a merchant’s overall chargeback account.

Combined with the savings on chargeback fees, our advanced methods of fraud protection and our stellar winning percentage on contested chargebacks, we guarantee ROI to all merchants.

We work very closely with all the Card Networks, including Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. We share chargeback data with them about chargeback trends in the industry, what is affecting the merchants, etc.

We talk to Card Associations when they roll out new compelling evidence requirements and how it impacts the merchants. We are a major contributor to the payments ecosystem. We represent a wide range of merchants; our input has been taken into considerations within the payments ecosystem to improve the environment for merchants.

Our core foundation and belief are that in any industry, for any problem that has been continuing, there is always a trend. If you overlook the trend, the chances are you won't be able to identify where the problem is, and you'll continue having chargeback problems. We focus on helping merchants fight/prevent chargebacks and fraud.

Our state of the art technology combined with our experienced team members, we can effectively combat fraud and chargebacks across multiple e-commerce verticals. We have been in the payments industry for more than 13 years and have seen and serviced all types of industries.

We represent more than 2,200 merchants in diversified industries, which has given us a global perspective about the problems merchants have faced over the years. Chances are that when a new client comes on board, we have catered to a similar industry in the past. We come up with innovative solutions to help merchants fix their root causes and can assist merchants in ways to prevent chargebacks from happening in the first place.

If it's a totally new industry for us, we still apply our fundamental approach, and use that as a basis to analyze the patterns that are going on in that industry. We know we have the right tools, the right people and the right technology in place to identify the patterns, to collect all the data points and determine what is causing your chargebacks to occur.

It doesn't matter what industry you are in. If you're involved in CNP (Card Not Present) transactions, we can help you combat your chargebacks.

To prevent chargebacks, you first need to identify the root cause or causes of why you’re continuing to have chargebacks at an unacceptable rate. We help merchants like you identify your key causes for chargebacks.

Your company could be incurring chargebacks due to fulfillment errors, product issues, lack of proper customer service, billing problems or fraud. We analyze various components of chargebacks before we provide an extensive report to you so that you can address any problematic area and reduce your chargebacks.

We work closely with you to develop specific strategies that are customized for your business to prevent chargebacks before they hurt your bottom line.

To start with, we provide all our clients with a risk and vulnerability assessment. You can’t stop chargebacks until you’re aware of why you’re at risk. We also offer a back office process support, which will catch any potential problems, from out of date software to ineffective shipping, to a lack of effective records for customer service.

Our Chargeback Prevention Alert Program followed by Frictionless 3D Secure services and Root Cause Analyzer took can help you prevent up to 50% of your chargebacks. Please visit our Prevent services page to learn more.

Chargebacks not only affect your merchant account and give you something else you have to deal with, they can significantly affect your cash flow, the lifeline of any eCommerce business.

Chargeback alerts helps you prevent a chargeback before they happen. With our largest prevention alert network, we are able to stop up to 25% of your chargebacks before they hit your account.

Some merchants believe they're on their own when it comes to battling fraud, or they may turn to an attorney for help - who may or may not be an expert in fraud, or up to speed on what the latest schemes are targeting merchants in your industry.

Chargeback Gurus® will work with you and create a process to help you identify fraudulent customers. We'll also integrate your shopping cart with third party software that can help identify fraudulent customers and void the order before the product/service is delivered. We believe in human and automated review processes to prevent consumer fraud, as fraud is committed by humans and you need a two-tier approach to prevent consumer fraud.

Our analyst checks every order profile using our 35-point check system to identify consumer fraud. And we maintain a private blacklist of known fraudsters who have targeted your industry in the past, with different names and credit cards.

For 13+ years, Chargeback Gurus has been an industry leader not just in fighting chargebacks, but in alerting its clients to the latest fraudulent activities, and helping to prevent fraudulent orders, thus preventing chargebacks.

There are lots of ways to spot a counterfeit credit card or identity card if you are POS merchant - symmetry of the numbers when you look at the card, whether the card numbers match the type of card, behavior of the person, etc. For online merchants, it's a little trickier, since you're getting your information online, on the phone or in email.

For phone orders, behavior can still be an indicator, as well as unusual requests like an extreme rush order, shipping to somewhere other than the billing address, the name on the card given is different than the person placing the order, etc. Also, be aware of someone ordering several of the same item, especially those with immediate resale value.

In addition to checking the AVS and CVV numbers, you can also ask for a call back number to confirm you're talking to the card holder, or even contact the issuing bank for confirmation.

Every time a consumer makes a fraud claim, issuing banks report TC40 data to the merchant's acquiring bank, other issuing banks and card brands like Visa and MasterCard. By using these files to understand their fraud risks, merchants can evaluate their fraud prevention tools to identify frequent behavior. 

TC40 data only applies to fraudulent activity, not to all chargebacks. The card issuers collect the data - Visa compiles it under Risk Identification Service (RIS) and MasterCard's TC 40 data is called the System to Avoid Fraud Effectively (SAFE). TC 40 Data can also hurt you, as every fraudulent case against you is shared with other banks and issuers in the system, even if you're not notified. The more often your company is targeted, the more likely it will continue to be, a concern for your MAS.

Charges may be declined for you based on multiple TC 40 reports, as well as fees or fines assessed. The best way to avoid being in that situation is to work with a team of fraud prevention experts, like Chargeback Gurus. Our experience will not only limit the number of fraudulent cases, but our relationship with banks and card companies gives us the access to TC 40 data, and the opportunity to correct information.

Unlike other providers our service and pricing models are very transparent, our pricing and services are created with one goal in mind which is to create a win-win strategy for you. If you are not satisfied with us, you can walk away anytime.

There are no long-term contracts; there are no setup fees; there is no complicated pricing structure. Most of the providers do not display their pricing, but if you visit our pricing section, our pricing is clearly displayed for you.

Our goal is to set the expectation very clearly so that it will tell you what, or how you can measure our ROI. Upon request, we will provide you the ROI sheet so that you will know the relationship is a win-win or if not and at any time you feel that we have not satisfied your business needs, you are welcome to walk away.

Our setup process is very simple, if you are switching from another chargeback company. We ask that you speak with your current chargeback management provider and request the release of your descriptors immediately.

The moment the descriptors are released we can start managing all of your alerts, within one business day. When it comes to chargebacks our integration process is very simple and we can get you started within 3 - 5 business days provided we have all the login credentials from you.

Here are the four advantages:

1. One portal to manage chargebacks, Verifi CDRN Notifications and Ethoca Alerts
2. Gurus manage your alerts, refund the transaction and blacklist customers within 24 hours
3. You pay ONLY for unique alerts. Never pay for alerts raised by both providers.
4. Our No-Chargeback guarantee protects you in case your alert turns into a chargeback.

Our services are offered with one key goal in mind which is to create an ROI platform. We do not offer services to our clients who do not have any products. We are the only company who reveals the real ROI to our clients, we tell them why we are fighting chargebacks and why we are not fighting certain chargeback and we also reveal to our clients what their vulnerabilities are.

We analyze over 35 different chargeback data points but most of our competitors analyze just 5-6 data point which makes it challenging for them to determine the real cause of their chargebacks. We provide over 35 different analytical reports to determine the pattern and thus identifying vulnerabilities that are affecting their bottom line.

We also conduct regular meetings with our clients to assist in identifying vulnerabilities and recommend solutions that can get to the root cause of chargebacks. Our Prevention Alert services are far more superior to the rest of the chargeback management companies, because we do not charge our clients for duplicate alerts and we also manage all their alerts.

We also give our clients a guarantee that when an alert turns into a chargeback that we will refund the money 100%. We believe in empowering our merchants by providing vital information that will ultimately protect their business. We also believe in the power of transparency, our clients know upfront the services that we are providing, in order to calculate and track their ROI in real-time.

By partnering with the Gurus, you will have the ability:

1. To offer value-added services without any over-head expense.
2. Protect merchants from high chargebacks and fraud.
3. Work with an industry leader with a reputation for being transparent.
4. Provide a tool to your merchants that can analyze merchant account risk level, chargeback threshold and vulnerabilities causing chargebacks, real-time.
5. Monetize and create win-win situation for your merchants.

Once you are approved as a reseller partner, we will train you and your team on all our products and services.

We offer whole sale rates on all our services. You convince your clients to sign up for your services and make 100% of the markup rate. We will bill you every two weeks for the services offered to your clients and you will handle invoicing your clients.

The bank has no information that the cardholder’s refund request is invalid, the bank will issue a provisional credit to the cardholder and file a chargeback which automatically results in a debit from the merchant's bank. The chargeback is sent to the merchant’s payment processor whom will notify the merchant that a chargeback has been filed, and the merchant can either accept it or file a response to dispute the chargeback.

If the merchant disputes the chargeback and is able to provide the necessary and required compelling evidence that correlates with the reason code in which the chargeback was filed under, their processor will reverse it temporarily and refund the money to their account and send the merchant a response packet for the issuing bank to review. 

If the issuing bank accepts the evidence the merchant recovers their revenue.  However, if the issuing bank and the cardholder do not accept the evidence they can continue the dispute and file for pre-arbitration and the merchant can either accept it, losing the funds or they can respond and continue the dispute all the way to arbitration.  If the case continues the losing side will pay fees to the Card Association for arbitrating the case.

In general, the cardholder has up to 180 days to dispute a transaction, some Card Associations allow more or less time depending on the reason for the chargeback.  Once the chargeback has been filed the chargeback cycle is 90-120 days to come to a resolution.

It is important to note that every processor assigns their own deadlines for the merchant to respond to a chargeback, in general a merchant is provided 7-30 days to file a dispute.  If the case goes all the way to arbitration is can take another 90 days to complete the cycle.

All online businesses will have to deal with both. Sometimes called a 'soft' chargeback, a retrieval request is when the card issuer contacts the merchant requesting information about a specific transaction. The consumer may not have remembered the transaction and asked the cardholder for more information, or the transaction may have been missing information when it reached the bank.

While there is no financial impact to the merchant it is critical to respond to all retrieval requests, failure to do so will result in the merchant losing their right to dispute a chargeback for the transaction in question if one is filed.

Not preventing a chargeback will affect your branding. However, once a chargeback is filed, you may already have a customer who is upset about the transaction or you have a customer who is making deliberate attempts to defraud your business.

Merchants who become known as an easy mark, i.e., who never fight chargebacks, can be setting themselves up for repeated fraud from the same clients or organized fraudsters repeatedly, and others who hear how it easy it is to contest a purchase.

Even a dedicated in-house team does not have the time to stay aware of constantly changing regulations and requirements for challenging a chargeback - the rules have changed more in the last 5 years than in the previous 45 years and are expected to change even more in the next five.

An in-house team also won't have the tools and analytics to identify where and why the problems are happening that lead to the chargebacks. A chargeback representative company is able to provide all the right tools and reports to identify potential problems and is better equipped to fight the chargebacks you currently have. That's why it's very important to work with not just any representative company, you need an experienced chargeback recovery team.

You want a company who is vested in the payment industry, who has exposure to the necessary technology, who is able to identify root causes and vulnerabilities in your business, in order to help you successfully recover chargebacks and prevent future occurrences. If you discover that your in-house team is not winning at least 50% of the disputed cases, then you could be losing a good amount of your revenue. It may be time to outsource your chargeback work to an experienced representment company.

When a customer reports that tangible or digital goods were never actually delivered, or the product was defective, and the consumer calls their card issuer instead of the merchant, that is referred to as friendly fraud.

Many times, the consumer simply found it easier to call the credit card company than the merchant and may be a loyal customer who didn't even realize they were negatively impacting the merchant. The majority of Friendly Fraud chargebacks are actually clients trying to get something for nothing.

Refunds transfer funds from your merchant account back to the customer's account. While they are preferable to a chargeback, there are still costs involved. Your processor will charge you twice, for the original transaction and the refund. A refund typically takes a few business days to reach the client's account, which could lead to a chargeback request.

In addition, too many refunds may flag you as a high-risk merchant. If you're already considered as high-risk, a high refund rate may increase your reserve percentage and/or put your MID at risk.