You’ve helped your customers make the most of their homes. Now Elavon would like to help you make the most of your payments systems.
Whether you trade online, in-store, by mail or telephone order or a combination of these, the problem of chargebacks can eat into your working day and the funds in your bank account.
What’s a chargeback?
A chargeback is a charge that’s returned to a debit or credit card after a customer successfully disputes an item on their account statement. They might dispute a charge for any number of reasons:
- They’ve been charged for items they didn’t receive;
- They’ve been charged mistakenly because of a technical issue;
- Product returns, defective items or maybe a reservation or service has been cancelled;
- You might have accidentally duplicated a charge; or Their card information has been compromised and they’ve been hit with a fraudulent charge.
Dealing with a disputed charge can be tedious and testing. It takes time to trace a payment in your reporting systems, while also trying to assuage your customer – who might no longer have their proof of purchase. You’ll typically be charged a fee from the card issuer when a chargeback happens.
Chargebacks are more common in card-not-present (CNP) transactions, but some general rules apply to both CNP and in-store sales.
How can I prevent in-store chargebacks?
- Know your customers: keeping transaction records can help you identify high-risk transactions. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you are to spot transactions that don’t match their risk profiles.
- Get familiar with technology: with so many ways to pay, check that customers making contactless or digital payments use the technology correctly and whether sales go through on their first attempt.
- Returns and refunds: display policies clearly in-store and state them again at the point of sale.
- Customer service: encourage customers to resolve disputes by phone, rather than through the chargeback process, by including your contact details on receipts (this also goes for CNP transactions – although these may only be fully secured with 3-D Secure). But always ask for receipts and proof that goods were indeed damaged.
How can I prevent Card-Not-Present (CNP) chargebacks?
- 3-D Secure 2.0: for online payments, the latest 3-D Secure transaction authentication means more secure transactions and better protection from fraud chargebacks.
- Content is king: describe your products clearly on your website, so customers won’t have reason to return them.
- The same for return/refund policies and delivery: state when they can expect their items, the cost of delivery and how they can track purchases.
- Trading name: make sure your business’ trading name matches what appears on customers’ bank statements.
- CVV2/CVC2 security: use these codes on credit and debit cards as an additional security check.
- Avoid CNP transactions: instead, send a payment link generated by your payments provider to the customer by text or email for a safe, speedy sale.
Human touch
Don’t forget the personal touch can go a long way when dealing with chargebacks. Well-trained staff, armed with the knowledge and tools to sort disputes, can keep customers coming back.
The right approach, combined with fraud-prevention tools and strategies, can help keep your payments process as safe as houses.
Want more help with preventing chargebacks – or any other aspect of payments processing? Get in touch with Peter Cooke, Enterprise Sales Manager, Retail, Elavon Merchant Services, peter.cooke@elavon.com.
