Reason code · Discover
Discover AA: cardholder does not recognize the transaction
AA means the cardholder doesn’t recognize the charge. It isn’t a fraud claim yet: often the customer just can’t match the statement line to you. Answering Discover’s earlier document request, if one came, matters more than anything you send later.
What AA means
AA means the cardholder looked at their statement and didn’t recognize the charge. That isn’t the same as saying it was fraud. Often the customer simply can’t connect the name on the statement to your business.
Some processors show a number instead: Stripe lists Does Not Recognize as 4752.
What the customer told their bank
“I don’t know what this is.” Your job is to help the bank, and the customer, recognize it.
Time limit
Chase’s processor guide lists 120 days from the transaction date.
Discover’s rules come through your processor. Discover doesn’t publish its dispute rules manual. Its rules reach you through your processor, and published response windows conflict from one source to the next. The due date on your notice governs. Use it, not a number from an article.
What proof matters
Everything that helps someone recognize the purchase. For card-not-present sales, Chase’s guide lists all the information you have: an itemized bill, bill-to and ship-to addresses, and proof of delivery if available. For in-person sales, a valid sales slip.
The earlier request is the one that counts
Discover can send a Ticket Retrieval Request first: a request for the records of the sale before any chargeback. It’s easy to ignore because no money has moved. Don’t. Chase’s guide says that if you don’t provide documentation in response, the issuer may start a final and non-appealable chargeback, and that a chargeback following an unanswered request has no representment rights. In plain terms: miss the request and you may lose the right to fight at all.
Make your charge recognizable
Discover’s own fraud-prevention page asks merchants to put their business name, as customers know it, and a customer service number on receipts and bills. A statement line the customer recognizes is a dispute that never starts.
The common mistake
A statement name that doesn’t match the name customers know you by. Check what your descriptor actually shows.
Dispute Daddy builds this for you
Upload the notice and your records. Dispute Daddy builds a response around the reason the bank actually gave, and you approve it before you submit. See how the method works.
