A message from your Customer Account Management team

Chargebacks peak after the holidays, but don’t let them damper your start to the new year. Elavon offers tools, teams and other resources to help you identify invalid chargebacks and file a dispute response.

We’ve dedicated our January newsletter to helping you understand these chargebacks, strategize for mitigation and prevent them in the future. We’ll also introduce you to the team dedicated to supporting our customers throughout the lifecycle of a chargeback dispute.

Cardholders and their card issuing bank initiate a chargeback dispute as a way to argue the validity of a card transaction and request reimbursement from the payment recipient. They often do this instead of first trying to resolve their issue with the involved merchant.

Chargebacks can affect any business that accepts credit or debit card payments. But the more vulnerable businesses often sell luxury goods or services, are subscription based, run eCommerce sites or offer digital products.

When a chargeback dispute is valid
Chargeback disputes presented are often valid, such as unauthorized transactions, merchant errors, non-receipt of goods or services, or if a purchased item is not as described or defective. Another valid reason for a chargeback can include unauthorized transactions where the cardholder's payment information was used fraudulently. The process is designed to be a form of cardholder protection within the acceptance and dispute rules established by the involved card brand. Further down in this newsletter, we offer tips that can help detour chargeback disputes.

When a chargeback dispute may be fraud-based
Unfortunately, invalid chargebacks are increasingly common. These chargebacks involve a level of fraud ranging from unintentional—such as a customer not recognizing a business’s billing descriptor—to organized theft.

Generally, fraudulent chargebacks fall into four categories: friendly fraud, when a customer makes a legitimate purchase but later forgets or claims they didn’t authorize it; return fraud, where a customer alleges a defect that doesn’t exist when returning a product; digital goods fraud, which involve disputes for online courses, software licenses or other digital products; and subscription fraud, where a customer claims a recurring charge was unauthorized or previously canceled.

Terms defined
The dispute and response process is known as chargeback representment. It’s a tightly regulated process for fighting an invalid chargeback. Representment involves providing the card issuing bank and the involved card network with evidence that demonstrates a transaction was valid under the card brand rules and that the cardholder's claim should be resolved in favor of the merchant that accepted the original card payment. Representment can help a business prevail on some chargeback losses. Learn more about the process in the next story.

If you’re new to chargebacks or confused by some of the language, check out this list of common chargeback terms and definitions.*

Who assess chargeback fees?
When a merchant receives a chargeback on a transaction, it is the acquiring bank or credit card network that assesses the chargeback fee. Although Elavon has no control over these fees, we can help support your case if you choose to argue a chargeback claim’s validity (more details on our support featured below).

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Unchallenged chargebacks can cost your business money in lost sales and added fees. But with the right strategy, fighting invalid chargebacks can be worth the effort. Here are some guidelines:

• Speed matters because chargebacks have specific time limits for filing a dispute.
• Check in with your Customer Account Manager because Elavon may already be pushing back on the chargeback as presented.
• Know the facts by gathering accurate, compelling evidence for your chargeback rebuttal response. By including all transaction details, signed receipts, delivery information and evidence up front, you have the best chance of getting your response considered.
• Study reason codes, which provide details on each chargeback and requirements for responding. Codes differ among the four major credit card networks (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover), but you can easily look them up using the Chargeback Gurus search resource.*
• Refer to rules set by the card brand networks because each network has detailed requirements regarding representment and timing. The Chargeback Gurus search resource also provides many of these details, including what evidence to provide to support your case.
• Prioritize which chargebacks to fight based on Return on Investment (ROI) and the likelihood of winning the case. Card networks issue chargeback dispute fees and fines issued to a merchant that loses a case can be steep: Mastercard, for example, will assess an Arbitration or Compliance fee that ranges from $150 up to $1,000 or more.

Representment simplified with Payments Insider
When preparing for the representment process, which is your opportunity to submit evidence demonstrating transaction compliance with the involved card brand rules, use Payments Insider’s Chargeback Summary Report tool to simplify the process.

You can view a report that will display all of the disputed transactions you currently have on file. This report will also provide you with a way to respond to these disputes and provide any documents that we have requested. Read our knowledge article on this feature.

If you are dealing with unusual chargebacks, contact us. We have dedicated professionals who can help and we’ll introduce you to the team later in this newsletter.

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The representment process can help a business prevail on some chargeback losses, but preventing fraudulent chargebacks is the goal. Here are some tips:

• Monitor your customer and purchase activity to gain insight into purchase patterns and areas of risk. Using the data to spot the root causes of chargebacks will help identify operational issues and improve your internal processes.
• The right customer service and communication approaches make it harder for a transaction to be disputed and help bolster your case if a dispute is later filed. See the list.*
• Use your full business name as the descriptor to appear on your customers’ credit card statements. Instead of listing your business as BFS LLC, spell it out: Beautiful Floral Shop LLC. This helps customers better recognize charges.
• Add EMV 3D Secure to your account to help reduce the risk of unauthorized transactions and fraud in the card not present environment. This technology is available to Converge users and provides an extra layer of transaction authentication during the transaction authorization with the card issuing bank, lowering the likelihood of chargebacks related to fraudulent activity. EMV 3D Secure protects you and your business.
• Elavonʼs Converge platform has fraud prevention security measuresthat can be configured to fit your business.

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Elavon’s global Dispute Resolution team includes 125 professionals dedicated to supporting our customers throughout the lifecycle of a chargeback dispute.

The team includes subject matter experts in credit card networks and in specific industries and acts as an intermediary and as a resource amid customers' chargeback disputes.

Committed to maintaining the highest standards in chargeback management and response, they leverage cutting-edge technology and continually optimize processes to deliver value to our customers.

Here are some tips from the Dispute Resolution team to help start the chargeback process:

• Sign up for paperless communications. Chargeback notification letters can get delayed in the mail, which cuts into the time allotted for responding to a dispute. Using email and notifications from the Payments Insider portal gives you fast, easy access to dispute notifications, case numbers and other important information.
• Have your case number close by. We often don’t have access to the cardholder’s name, so have the case number ready when you call or include it in your emails. The number is a 10-digit code (for credit card chargebacks) or a 6-digit code (for debit card chargebacks) in the top right corner of your notification email or letter.
• Note the response date. Card brand regulations and chargeback rules vary in the amount of time they provide for merchant chargeback responses to be submitted.
• Don’t double pay. If you accept a chargeback and it gets debited from your account, you don’t need to respond to the chargeback notification. Doing so could issue an additional credit to the cardholder or their card issuing bank.

If you have questions about a dispute, team members are available from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. ET., Monday through Friday, at 866-600-5008 or email at DisputeResolution@elavon.com. Or you can access resources at any time through the Payments Insider portal.

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Who do you call?

Call Customer Care at 800-725-1243 or email custserv@elavon.com with questions about:

• Daily account activity and funding
• Point-of-sale terminal or PC product issues
• Your monthly billing statement

Contact your Customer Account Manager with questions about:

• Managing card processing for your business
• Product and equipment information and training
• Other payment solutions or services that may be available to you

For help setting up your talech solution, visit talech PaymentStart or email onboarding@talech.com

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