Merchant-Accounts.ca: The Demystifying Payments Blog

Our CEO David Goodale was recently interviewed by Giacomo Panico of CBC News Ottawa to explain what card testing is, and how it can be a problem for e-commerce merchants.

The third and final in our fighting chargebacks series is how to fight item not received or services not rendered chargebacks. While winning a chargeback is always an uphill battle, these are some of the easiest to win chargebacks because all you really need to do is prove that the customer received what they paid for. In fairness, with some businesses it's easier to prove than others. David provides examples of different types of businesses, and how you can work to prove a customer received what they paid for.

For e-commerce and card-not-present merchants fraud chargebacks are usually the hardest ones to win. The challenge is that you have to prove the cardholder is who they say they are, and that they actually ordered the item or service in question. Ultimately, if the cardholder didn't actually buy the item or service in question you can't win, so in this discussion David also talks about ways to validate orders.

Merchants have to keep chargeback percentages under the allowable Visa and Mastercard chargeback thresholds. (For more info on chargeback thresholds see: https://www.merchant-accounts.ca/visa-and-mastercard-chargeback-thresholds-2023.php). The problem is that some types of businesses simply get more chargebacks than others. David explains a strategy that some businesses can employ to lower their chargeback ratios, and prevent you from ending up on a Visa or Mastercard chargeback mitigation program.

Pre-authorizations are one of the best tools available to prevent fraud. A pre-auth will enable you to return security results for the order, such as AVS and CVV security checks. More importantly, it gives you a chance to evaluate the order and determine if you want to accept the sale. You are fully protected because you can't get a chargeback until you capture the funds from the pre-authorization.

There is a strong argument that 3DSecure (version 2) is the single best anti-fraud tool available to any online merchant. In this video David explains what 3DSecure is, how it works, how you set it up on your website, and different ways that it can be configured.

Merchants with businesses that are prone to disputes need to be careful to stay below the Visa and MasterCard thresholds.

How does Visa and MasterCard chargeback arbitration work? When a merchant has fought a chargeback and lost there is still one more chance to turn it around by taking it to the card brands for arbitration.

David explains what two factor authentication is, how it works, and how it shifts chargeback risk for fraud onto the card issuer and away from the merchant.

It can be difficult to win a chargeback dispute. David explores different ways to shift the odds into your favour.

A positive AVS result is an indicator of a legitimate transaction. In this short explainer video David explains what AVS is, how it works, and things to be aware of when relying on an AVS security result for any particular order.

Card testing is an increasing problem for #ecommerce merchants. Fraudsters are constantly looking for ways to test cards. It's even a problem for payment processors, Visa and Mastercard. In this video David explains what card testing is, why fraudsters do it, and how to stop it, in addition to advice on how to get some of the fees reversed when it occurs.

A chargeback is a dispute between a customer and the business. In this video we explore what a chargeback is, and some of the reasons that chargebacks occur.

If you get too many chargebacks your merchant account can be shut down. In this video we explore what you should do to keep your account in good standing if you've been targeted by fraudsters and suddenly start receiving a lot of chargebacks.

Hello, David here at Merchant-Accounts.ca. Today I'm going to tackle a very frustrating topic. Sometimes it's infuriating. What do you do when you get a chargeback and you lose it and it's completely unfair? What's left? Stay tuned, I'm going to do my best to help in one second.

In the past the best way to manually screen suspicious orders was to call the customer on the phone and ask them questions. Now, with modern web based video technologies it's possible to validate customers in a way that was never previously possible.

Visa is addressing some of the most common chargeback related complaints from merchants. Going forward, chargebacks are a thing of the past and will now be known as disputes.