AltoPay

Welcome to our first weekly Tip Tuesday series where we offer helpful advice and never-before-shared insights to optimize your chargeback management strategy.

Let’s get started.

🧠 HOW TO MATCH AN ALERT TO ITS ORIGINAL TRANSACTION

Each alert comes with information to help you locate the alert’s corresponding transaction in your CRM or order management system.

🟢 The first 6 and last 4 digits of the cardholder’s account number
🟢 The transaction date
🟢 The dispute amount
🟢 The customer name (usually only included with Verifi alerts)
🟢 The acquirer reference number or ARN (usually only included with Verifi alerts)

In most cases, it’s easy to match an alert to the corresponding transaction. But occasionally the information provided doesn’t match anything in your CRM or order management system.

🧠 HERE’S HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT THIS ISSUE:

📌 If you can’t find a transaction on the same date…

Try broadening your search to a couple days before and after the alert date.
The issuer might be using the authorization date instead of the actual processing date. Or maybe your system is tracking the authorization date, but the alert uses the settlement date.

📌 If you can’t find a transaction for the same amount…

Check the currency. You might need to convert the alert currency to the original transaction currency.

Remember “partial amount” disputes are a possibility, and the alert amount could be less than the original transaction amount. For example, if you sold a pair of shoes and a sweater, the cardholder might be disputing only the amount for the shoes.

If you are struggling to match a transaction by alert amount, try matching other variables instead — like the account number.

📌 If you can’t find a transaction with the same account number…

Cardholder account numbers commonly change when a card expires. So it’s possible that the alert and transaction aren’t using the same account number. For example, you might process a transaction with the old account number but receive an alert with the new account number.

Try locating the transaction in your gateway instead of your CRM. If your CRM has already been updated to reflect the new account number but the alert has the old number, your gateway would still have the original number used to process the transaction.

Otherwise, use a different alert data element — such as ARN (if available), cardholder name (if available), date, or amount — for matching.

📌 If nothing matches…

Maybe you are receiving alerts that don’t belong to you. Check back next week for tips on how to manage this issue.

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Do you have a question you’d like us to answer? Let us know. Help craft our series to include information that would be helpful for your business.

This month we are celebrating a major milestone — 15 years in business! 🎉

Thanks to everyone who has partnered with us over the years. We truly appreciate your support, encouragement, and trust.

Cheers to the next decade — and beyond!

Want to learn more about where we came from and what we're about? Check the blog article link in the comments! 👇

Losing money is bad enough, but losing it twice?! That's just unacceptable.

Here's what you need to know about double refunds.

EXPLANATION...
Double refunds happen when you refund a transaction AND a chargeback is filed for the same transaction. So the cardholder is credited twice and you lose double the revenue.

IF YOU EXPERIENCE A DOUBLE REFUND...
The technical term for a double refund is "dual enrichment," and the card brands (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) have policies in place to handle these situations.

Issuers are required to fix a double refund — but you have to tell them it's happened.

If you receive a chargeback for a transaction that has already been refunded, simply respond to the chargeback with proof that the refund was issued before the chargeback was filed. You should have a 100% win rate on these cases.

HOW TO PREVENT DOUBLE REFUNDS...

Here are some prevention tips:

* If a cardholder requests (and is entitled to) a refund, make sure you issue credit ASAP. Don't delay.

* After you've issued the credit, notify the cardholder. Let the cardholder know when the money should be refunded to the account — sometimes it could take up to a week.

* If you use prevention alerts, refund and respond ASAP (at most, 24 hours). If the issuer knows a refund is coming, they shouldn't issue a chargeback.

* Don't ever issue a refund AFTER receiving a chargeback. A chargeback automatically credits the cardholder's account. You don't need to refund the transaction yourself. And if you do refund after the chargeback, the issuer is not required to resolve the dual enrichment.

❓VAMP question of the week ❓

Will VAMP thresholds include a monthly minimum? 🤔

Current fraud and chargeback monitoring programs include monthly minimums. A minimum is a count or amount that must normally be reached before a merchant or acquirer would be enrolled in a program.

For example, the minimum dispute count for enrollment in Visa’s current chargeback monitoring program is 100 disputes per month. A merchant will be enrolled in a program if their dispute ratio is over 0.9% AND they’ve had at least 100 chargebacks in a given month. (But if, let’s say, the count was only 90, the merchant wouldn’t be enrolled — even if the ratio was over the limit.)

With the new VAMP, acquirers and merchants won’t technically be added to the program until they’ve received at least 1,000 cases (disputes + TC40s) in a month.

However, we aren’t sure if acquirers will actually use minimums as part of their monitoring efforts or if penalties (fees) will solely be based on the VAMP ratio.

There are a couple reasons why this is still an unknown. Check our VAMP blog article if you’d like to learn more about how penalties will likely be assessed. https://www.altopay.com/vamp-visas-new-fraud-chargeback-monitoring-program/

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Do you have questions about VAMP? Let us know. We’re happy to help!