Report: Merchant survey reveals trends, impacts of ‘friendly fraud’
As e-commerce sales continue to hit record highs, merchants around the globe are seeing a correlated rise in disputes by cardholders through card-not-present (CNP) transactions. This unfortunate trend is directly affecting the price of goods and services for consumers, and has led retailers to adopt stricter policies and AI-driven tools to protect their revenue.
To show the true impact friendly fraud has on retailers, Chargebacks911—a provider of chargeback remediation services—has released its 2024 Chargeback Field Report, giving merchants and financial institutions an understanding into the current state of chargebacks and the measures being taken by businesses to help stem the tide of chargeback abuse.
From April to June 2024, retail eCommerce sales in the U.S. reached over $291 billion, according to Statista, the highest quarterly revenue in history. While this gives merchants a reason to celebrate, a leading concern among retailers are post-transaction threats like friendly fraud and refund abuse rising in step with online sales.
Presented in partnership with Edgar, Dunn & Company, this year’s Field Report surveyed nearly 300 retailers, from small businesses to enterprise merchants. One of the most alarming statistics revealed in the study was the spike in increased chargeback abuse; nearly three-quarters of surveyed respondents reported an 18% average increase in friendly fraud over the last three years.
While the chargeback process is a necessary mechanism meant to protect consumers, the misuse and abuse of the system has caused insurmountable reputational and financial damage to merchants.
With 53% of cardholders disputing a transaction with their bank without contacting the retailer, merchants lose the ability to resolve disputes directly with the consumer.
“In the U.S., the right to dispute transactions is protected by federal law. Unfortunately, our survey results suggest that most customer disputes are illegitimate,” says Monica Eaton, CEO of Chargebacks911. “Major card networks estimate that as much as 70% of all credit card fraud can be traced to chargeback misuse, or ‘friendly fraud,’ an issue that surveyed merchants say has increased nearly 20% over the last three years.”
Mastercard reports that money lost to chargebacks cost merchants an estimated $117.47 billion in 2023. What’s more concerning is that merchant errors remain a leading cause of customer disputes.
Confusing or unrecognizable billing descriptors was the leading cause of chargebacks among cardholders surveyed in Chargebacks911’s 2024 Cardholder Dispute Index. A third of merchants, however, said they did not know exactly how their billing descriptor appears on customer billing statements.
Of the most useful tools being utilized to address post-transaction fraud and misuse, merchants are leaning heavily on machine-learning and AI to aggregate, analyze and act on transaction data. In fact, 62% of surveyed retailers said they are already using or plan to use AI-based technology to identify and address instances of friendly fraud.
“Chargeback data can serve as a powerful KPI, useful for more accurate decisions and fine-tuning strategies,” says Eaton. “It’s worth pointing out that according to our survey, merchants who used a third-party solution or software were twice as likely to know their tracking numbers.”
Furthermore, card networks themselves are more aware of the impacts friendly fraud is having on merchants, and have rolled out new dispute rules to help create a more balanced framework when it comes to chargebacks.
Updated rule sets like Visa’s Compelling Evidence 3.0 and Mastercard’s First-Party Trust Program help businesses protect honest transactions and prevent illegitimate disputes by allowing for more transaction information to be submitted by retailers, including purchase history and IP addresses.
Merchants of all sizes are encouraged to challenge any chargeback they receive that shows signs of friendly fraud or first-party misuse, according to Chargebacks911.
The majority of surveyed retailers say they have an internal team dedicated to managing chargebacks, but when comparing the numbers reported by merchants, the report found that companies who leverage representment software and services through a platform provider saw a net recovery rate more than 55 percent higher than merchants that managed the process internally.
