Merchant Account Blog & Credit Card Processing Blog

With today’s economic pressures on people and businesses, it is vital to minimize
potential problems that could lead to account closures.  One way to do this is by
educating your merchants on how to prevent chargebacks.  Below are 9 ways to do
this with MO/TO and Internet based accounts.

1. Refund Policy Disclosure for Mail Order Merchants: Include the refund policy
   on the Order Form, Invoice, or Contract.
    
2. Refund Policy Disclosure for e-Commerce Merchants:  On the website,
   state the refund policy and have the cardholder select a “click to accept” or
   “I agree” button to acknowledge the policy.
   
3. If a ‘decline’ response is received when authorizing a transaction, request
   another form of payment.
     
4. Obtain an authorization number for the full amount of the sale - do not break
   the sale into several smaller amounts.
   
5. Use Address Verification Service (AVS) and scrutinize or decline any
   transaction where the response is not Y.
    
6. Know that the fraud risks increase when merchandise is shipped overseas
   or shipped to an address other than the billing address.
   
7. In the case of recurring payments, the chance of experiencing a ‘Cancelled
   Recurring’ chargeback is reduced by pre-notifying customers of an
   upcoming billing transaction.
   
8. Require CVV, CCV and CVV2 during the transaction process and check the
   results before fulfilling an order.
   
9. Watch for transactions that are “too good to be true” - they often are!