Chargebacks are considered as a way for customers to get their money back when they make unsatisfactory debit or credit card purchases. However, it is important to note that as an online merchant, chargebacks are far from being the same as refunds. Chargebacks may seem like a fair means for consumers to get their money back, but the associated effects of high chargeback ratios when it comes to the online merchant can be serious enough to lead to closure.
Let’s take a look at why businesses need to avoid high chargeback ratios at all times.
Effects of Excessive Chargeback Levels
Fees
First and foremost, online merchants have to deal with the associated processing and chargeback fees slapped on them or their payment processing partner by card networks as chargeback ratios rise. When a customer files for a chargeback, they get their money back, but the online merchant has to cover these underlying costs.
Fines
Escalating chargeback ratios usually lead to huge fines being slapped on the payment processing partners by credit networks. The fine is passed on to the online merchant to cover in the end.
Reputation
It is also worth noting that rising chargeback ratios affect the business’s reputation. In the social world, we live in today; it is quite easy for customers to spread the word about the many chargebacks they have filed against a certain business, ultimately damaging the online merchant’s reputation.
Payment Processing Partners
Perhaps the most serious effect of chargebacks comes in the form of being dropped by payment processing partners. Card brand regulations usually place the responsibility of monitoring merchant chargeback rations on the payment processors. The processors/acquirers usually drop merchants whose chargebacks are unacceptably high. This can lead to business closure, as the merchant cannot process payments from card holders.
Termination of the Merchant Account
As the result of excessive chargeback ratio, your payment processor will terminate your account and hold your processing funds more than six months. Termination fee will also apply on you. Closure of any merchant account from any of the processing company has so many drawbacks like end of processing, no ability to refund any existing transaction, relation between you and payment processor or acquirer affected, you’re also determined in fraud category by the payment processor and won’t able to establish any more merchant account in future from the same payment processing company.
As you can see from the above effects of rising chargeback ratios, online merchants need to monitor and reduce chargebacks continuously.
According to card brand regulations, chargeback ratios are calculated in one of two ways. Visa usually calculates the ratio by dividing the number of chargebacks by the number of transactions in a given month. MasterCard on the other hand usually takes the number of chargebacks in the current month divide by the number of transaction in the previous month. The result in both cases determines the online merchant’s account classification by the card networks.
Online merchants need to monitor chargeback ratios continuously, especially due to the fact that card brand regulations change regularly. The varied nature of chargebacks and the amount of transactions means that online merchants need the help of a chargeback expert to monitor chargeback and help them come up with an effective system that helps keep these transactions at acceptable levels.
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