Industry · Ecommerce
Ecommerce chargebacks: fraud, missing packages and “not as described”
Online stores see the widest mix of disputes: stolen cards, packages the customer says never arrived, items not as described, and returns that weren’t refunded. Online sales are card-not-present, so the store usually carries the fraud risk unless the payment was authenticated.
Key takeaways
- Two families dominate. Fraud claims and “not received / not as described.”
- Card-not-present means the store carries fraud risk. Unless the payment was authenticated.
- “Delivered” isn’t the same as delivered to the customer. Where it went matters.
- Say when it will arrive. No delivery date lets the bank file 15 days after the purchase.
Why online stores get disputed
An online sale happens without the card in your hand, the goods travel through a carrier you don’t control, and the customer judges the product only after it arrives. Every gap is a dispute waiting to happen. The ones we see most:
- “I didn’t make this purchase.” A stolen card, or a real customer who doesn’t want to pay.
- Item not received. Lost, stolen from a porch, or shipped to the wrong place.
- Not as described or defective. Wrong size, wrong color, broke in a week.
- Return not refunded. The customer sent it back and the credit never posted.
- Unrecognized charge. The statement name doesn’t match the store’s brand.
Which reason codes stores see
A reason code is the bank’s label for why the customer disputed. For stores, two families carry most of the volume:
- Fraud: Visa 10.4 (card-absent fraud), Mastercard 4837, Amex F29 and Discover UA01.
- Consumer disputes: not received under Visa 13.1, Mastercard 4853 (legacy 4855) and Amex C08; not as described under Visa 13.3, Mastercard 4853 and Amex C31 or C32; refunds not processed under Visa 13.6.
The insight: “delivered” is a carrier status, not proof
Most stores answer a not-received dispute with a tracking screenshot. Not so fast. A status line shows what the carrier reported, not who got the package or where. A package delivered to a freight forwarder, a reshipper or an address that doesn’t match the customer is weak proof the customer received it, and it’s often a sign of fraud in the first place. Stronger proof shows the delivery itself and ties it to the customer.
Fraud and “not received” are different fights. A fraud claim is about who made the purchase. A not-received claim is about what happened after. Answering one with the other’s proof loses both.
On fraud, Visa’s rules give stores one useful lever: some card-absent fraud disputes are invalid when the same card was used with the store before, without a dispute, and the purchases share matching customer details. That’s the idea behind what Visa calls compelling evidence: proof that ties the disputed purchase to a customer you already know.
Deadlines to watch
Customers usually have 120 days from the processing date to dispute. For goods not received, Visa lets the window start on the date the customer expected the delivery instead, up to 540 days after the purchase, which matters for preorders and backorders. If you don’t give a delivery date, Visa lets the bank file a not-received dispute 15 days after the purchase. Your response window is the date on your notice, usually 7 to 21 days.
Dispute Daddy builds this for you
What matters is short: the order, the customer’s details, the delivery record and the policy the customer accepted at checkout. Dispute Daddy works from the records you upload, builds the response around the reason the customer actually gave, and keeps the due date in view. You review, approve and submit. A flat $99 a month. See pricing.
