Reason code · Visa
Visa reason code 10.2: lost or stolen chip-and-PIN card fraud
Visa 10.2 is a fraud dispute: a real card that was lost, stolen or never received was used at your counter, and your terminal didn’t handle its chip and PIN properly. The bank has 120 days to file.
Key takeaways
- A real card, in the wrong hands. 10.2 covers lost, stolen and never-received cards, not copies.
- PIN is the point. It applies to cards set up to prefer a PIN, used where chip-and-PIN didn’t happen properly.
- Tap payments are out. Visa’s rules list contactless transactions as invalid for 10.2.
What Visa 10.2 means
Visa calls this “EMV Liability Shift Non-Counterfeit Fraud.” The card was genuine, but the person using it wasn’t the cardholder. Under the EMV liability shift, the business whose setup couldn’t do chip and PIN carries the loss.
Visa’s rules require that the sale was in person, the cardholder denies it, the card is a PIN-preferring chip card, and one of these happened: the sale wasn’t at a chip reader, the chip reader wasn’t EMV PIN-compliant, or the chip was used without an online PIN and the full chip data didn’t reach Visa.
What the customer told their bank
“My card was lost” or “my card was stolen, and I didn’t make this purchase.” Before filing, the bank must report the fraud to Visa as lost, stolen or card not received, and certify that the card is a PIN-preferring chip card.
The time limit
The cardholder’s bank has 120 calendar days from the date the transaction was processed.
Your own deadline is shorter. Fraud and authorization codes have no separate “dispute response” step in Visa’s rules. Your bank (the acquirer) answers with a pre-arbitration attempt, and it has 30 calendar days from the dispute to do it. Your processor keeps part of that time, so the due date on your notice is the one that counts.
What kind of proof matters
Like 10.1, this is a terminal question. Visa’s rules make a 10.2 invalid for a contactless transaction, a fallback transaction, or a transaction correctly processed at an EMV PIN-compliant device. Your terminal and processor records answer that, not a letter.
One more thing to know: Visa’s compelling-evidence options, which help with some other fraud codes, don’t apply to 10.2.
One common mistake
Assuming your terminal handles PIN because it reads chips. Reading a chip and being EMV PIN-compliant aren’t the same thing. If you see a lot of cards from abroad, ask your processor whether your device takes PINs properly.
Dispute Daddy builds the response from your notice and your own records, ready for you to review, approve and submit. A flat $99 a month. See pricing.
