Mastercard 4812: account number not on file

What 4812 means

4812 is the old Mastercard code for Account Number Not on File. The card’s bank says the card number on your sale doesn’t match any account it has.

Mastercard now handles this under 4808 Authorization-related Chargeback. Its Chargeback Guide says banks may still use 4812, recommends 4808 instead, and says 4812 will eventually be eliminated. Either way, the question is the same: did this sale have a valid approval?

What the customer told their bank

Usually nothing. This is the bank’s own claim, based on its records. A 4812 can trace back to a sale that wasn’t properly approved, such as a mistyped card number or a sale processed offline and pushed through later.

Time limit

It follows the 4808 rules: the bank has 90 calendar days from the transaction for most transactions. Your response is due on the date your processor gives you, carved out of the 45 days Mastercard gives your bank.

What proof matters

The approval for that exact card number: approval code, date and amount, plus the date you processed the sale. If you have a valid approval, that is the whole answer. If you don’t, there may be little to argue, and the fix is in how sales get approved.

A typo can cost the whole sale

Keyed-in card numbers are where this starts. A single wrong digit and there is no real account behind the charge. Mastercard’s Guide also says a card number that differs between the bank’s paperwork and the sale record isn’t enough on its own to win the response. Your approval has to line up with the transaction.

The common mistake

Processing a sale without a live approval, for example writing down a card number by phone and keying it in later when the approval step was skipped. Get the approval at the time of sale, every time, and read the number back to the customer.

Dispute Daddy builds this for you

Dispute Daddy reads the notice, keeps the due date in view and builds the response from your own records. You review it and submit it. See how the method works.