Whether they are caused by fraudulent chargeback detection  or honest customers, chargebacks can hurt businesses in the same ways: lost sales and inventory; chargeback fees, fines, or penalties; and diminished trust from credit card providers. For online merchants, fraudulent chargeback detection is a critical part of maintaining a healthy revenue stream.

The best way to reduce illegitimate chargebacks is to prevent them at the point of purchase. But a business can also implement other tools to detect suspicious activity and help deter fraudsters from filing a chargeback. These can include a fraud prevention algorithm that looks for atypical shopping patterns, such as high-velocity ordering or orders that send a large number of the same item to one address. Another approach is to use link analysis, which looks at how items are ordered together, in an effort to identify potentially fraudulent behavior.

Beyond the Call: Enhancing Data Quality with Phone Number Validator APIs

In many cases, however, a customer disputes a purchase because they never received the goods or services that they paid for, or because the product was not as described. This is known as “friendly fraud” and is a significant contributor to the rise in chargebacks. When a customer files a friendly fraud chargeback, they may also accuse the merchant of not communicating clearly with them about their order or not responding to inquiries in a timely manner.

This is why a comprehensive chargeback management solution is essential for online merchants. A good chargeback management system will automatically notify customers of their order status, send delivery confirmations and tracking information in real time, and help them resolve any issues with a transaction.