Updated May 2023
Ecommerce fraud is a problem that continues to grow. Yet despite all the tools and knowledge available to fight chargebacks, merchants continue to struggle to effectively prevent them. In fact, the problem is so prevalent that 2018 research by Experian found that 65% of merchants experienced either equivalent or higher levels of fraud losses over the course of the previous 12 months.
Given that fact, it’s little wonder that Experian also found that more than half of businesses were only “somewhat confident” in their ability to detect fraud.
All of this speaks to the reality that knowing how to prevent chargebacks is not easy for merchants to do. There are a variety of reasons why this shouldn’t be surprising. First, merchants are too busy with their businesses to worry about fraud. Second, their expertise lies in the products and/or services they offer – not in fraud prevention. And third, there are a lot of types of eCommerce fraud to prevent, each requiring a nuanced understanding that merchants simply don’t possess.
Faced with this reality, many merchants (wisely) think about turning to third-party chargeback management solutions for help. Outsourcing eCommerce fraud prevention to these platforms can help businesses save time, recover revenue, and remain focused on their core operations instead of fighting fraudsters.
To help merchants understand their options and find a solution that meets their needs, we’ve compiled a list of the best chargeback management solutions available. Use it as a resource to make fighting chargebacks as quick and easy as possible.
Below is a list of the top 9 chargeback protection solutions available to merchants:
- CB-ALERT (NEW)
- Chargeflow (NEW)
- Chargeback Expertz
- Chargeback Gurus
- Chargeback Help
- Chargeback Ops
- Chargebacks 911
- Chargehound
- SafeCharge
- Midigator [Acquired by Equifax]
- Chargeback.com [Acquired by Sift]
CB-ALERT
CB-ALERT is a leading chargeback prevention service dedicated to helping merchants fight and prevent chargebacks effectively. By providing clients with valuable data and real-time fraud detection tools, CB-ALERT aims to intercept and eliminate fraudulent transactions, ultimately saving merchants money in their battle against illegitimate chargebacks. With a strong focus on various industries, including e-commerce, online dating, travel, and adult entertainment.
CB-ALERT offers a versatile solution tailored to meet the needs of a wide array of merchants. CB-ALERT enables merchants to swiftly respond to customer chargeback disputes as soon as the issuing bank notifies them of a case. This real-time approach allows for immediate action, helping to stamp out friendly fraud and resolve disputes promptly, improving customer satisfaction.
CB-ALERT sets itself apart by offering cutting-edge, agile technology, along with transparent and competitive pricing structures tailored to each merchant’s unique circumstances. By thoroughly analyzing a merchant’s overall performance and risk exposure, CB-ALERT determines pricing without imposing any minimum requirements. This approach ensures that merchants of all sizes can benefit from CB-ALERT’s services, regardless of their scale or revenue. The company’s commitment to affordability and fairness makes their chargeback prevention solutions accessible to a wide range of businesses, empowering them to safeguard their financial interests and maintain a strong posture against chargebacks.
Chargeflow.io
Chargeflow’s AI uses proprietary algorithms and big data analysis to provide businesses with a ChargeScore which forecasts the success rates of recovering chargebacks. This score is calculated by analyzing millions of chargebacks and helps businesses understand their cash flow better by forecasting how much money they can expect to recover from ongoing chargebacks.
Chargeflow’s ChargeResponse feature uses smart algorithms that leverage millions of data points to generate an unrivaled chargeback evidence response designed to help businesses win more chargebacks and save time. The response is custom-tailored to each business, and adapts automatically to the store type and dispute reason code
.Chargeflow also provides businesses with insightful data and analytics, weekly summary emails with account statistics, and AI-based tips to lower the dispute rate and increase the win-rate. The evidence generated by the AI is audited by Chargeflow’s Dispute Experts to ensure it is in a position to win before being sent out.
All these operations are fully automated, with no intervention required from the business, making the process of dealing with chargebacks much simpler and more efficient.
Chargeback Expertz
Chargeback Expertz helps businesses prevent chargebacks before, during, and after a fraudster attack by directly integrating with payment processing and bank services. This symbiotic relationship gives the platform the visibility and access necessary to take proactive steps to identify and prevent fraudulent purchases before they turn into chargebacks.
Chargeback Expertz provides merchants with a real-time dashboard and various inbuilt reports that provide them with high-end insights into every aspect of their sales process. They also use manual and automated review processes to try to identify fraudulent orders and stop them from ever being fulfilled in the first place.
When chargebacks do occur, Chargeback Expertz helps merchants with fighting it and trying to get it reversed.The company claims a 45% chargeback prevention rate and successful dispute rate of 74%.
Chargeback Gurus
Chargeback Gurus offers clients hands-on chargeback representation and works to minimize business exposure to different kinds of disputes. They help merchants handle fraud disputes and also to fight many non-fraud causes of chargebacks such as friendly fraud. For example, they can help to fight disputes where customers claim they never received a fulfilled order, don’t recall making a purchase, or simply couldn’t be bothered to return an item and are using chargebacks as a lazy way to get a refund.
Additionally, they deal with disputes based on unclear delivery dates, products/services that didn’t meet expectations, or vague contract terms. Consulting services are also offered to help merchants understand the industry best practices to create workflows that minimize their liability to these kinds of claims.
The platform offers merchants a full suite of personal services tailored to help solve chargeback issues wherever and however they sell. With their full suite of services, they win an average of 65% of merchant chargeback disputes while also lowering their occurrence by an average of 50%. Pricing is based on need, not service, and so they do not make standard pricing known upfront. However, their fee structure is to take a percentage of revenues recovered via successful chargeback disputes.
Chargeback Help
Chargeback Help gives merchants access to their domestic US and international connections to Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) and Member Service Providers (MSPs) in the payments and banking industry.
Chargeback Help can also monitor merchants’ chargeback alerts with their 24-hour chargeback protection service. This allows merchants to remain focused on their business without having to worry about an unchallenged chargeback slipping through the cracks. The company claims a 40% success rate in preventing chargebacks by intercepting cardholder disputes and issuing refunds to resolve them.
In the event a chargeback does get filed, the platform also provides chargeback representation services to help merchants fight to regain their lost revenues.
Chargeback Ops
Chargeback Ops helps merchants fight chargebacks while also giving them resources and training to minimize their occurrence in the future. The company employs a staff of experts that take on direct access to merchants’ payment gateways, processors, and CRMs. This allows them to understand the unique sales pipelines and chargeback prevention needs of merchants and audit their payment processing workflows to find vulnerabilities fraudsters can exploit.
Chargeback Ops also uses their expertise to provide businesses with customized chargeback reversal and prevention strategies. These strategies cover many different angles of eCommerce fraud prevention including risk assessment and chargeback refund processing. Their understanding of chargeback processing also allows merchants to automate manually labor-intensive steps while still producing the timely, customized responses necessary to convince banks to reverse adverse decisions.
Chargebacks 911
Chargebacks 911 offers merchants self-service and managed chargeback prevention solutions. The self-service option providers merchants with access to a platform to help them successfully navigate the chargeback dispute process. The managed option shifts the process entirely to Chargebacks 911 and comes with performance based pricing that includes a guaranteed reversal rate of 40%.
The managed option uses patented technology to perform a 106 point diagnostic check designed to detect fraudulent orders and ensure fulfillment matches up with customer expectations. This helps merchants avoid chargebacks arising out of criminal intent, merchant error, and even friendly fraud.
Chargehound
Chargehound offers merchants an end-to-end API integration that collects and organizes all of the data necessary to win chargeback disputes. First, payment histories, shipping information, and anything else required from a payment processor is securely pulled into their system. Then, their system instantly creates and submits responses to chargebacks as soon as they arrive. Taken together, the system ensures timely and error free responses to chargebacks.
Chargehound’s fee structure is a percentage of recovered revenue, so merchants only need to pay when the system makes them money. In addition to chargeback disputes, the company also offers merchants a user-friendly dashboard to help them understand their chargebacks.
Safecharge
Safecharge offers merchants a highly customized fraud screening profile adapted to their specific needs. The platform’s features include a flexible rules engine, negative list checks on data points (including email addresses, credit card numbers, and IP addresses), and real-time fraud alert monitoring. Merchants can also use it to monitor fraud prevention rule performance and make adjustments as necessary.
Safecharge also assists merchants in preparing chargeback dispute documentation via detailed reporting and documentation that can be accessed either online or via an API integration.The platform uses this data-rich information and in-depth industry knowledge to provide merchants 24/7 assistance with preparing chargeback dispute documentation.
Midigator
[UPDATE] Equifax Acquires Midigator.com for an Undisclosed Amount.
Midigator helps startup merchants and large financial institutions to simplify their payment disputes by preventing, fighting, and analyzing chargebacks. They provide a comprehensive multi-layer approach to help resolve disputes while also preventing chargebacks. Midigator uses chargeback prevention alerts to refund transaction disputes to avoid chargebacks, prevent threshold breaches, and keep merchant accounts in good standing. The in-depth charts and analytics help clients to identify the underlying reason for transaction disputes and solve issues at their source.
Midigator uses technology in combination with highly successful strategies to recover lost revenue and fight chargebacks while minimizing time consuming and labor-intensive tasks. For example, they can help merchants locate and analyze their original order data to easily locate compelling evidence and deliver effective chargeback dispute reports.
Midigator also has an intelligent chargeback response system that classifies disputes by what chargeback reason codes mean and only fights what can be successfully challenged, ensuring resources aren’t wasted.
Chargeback.com
[UPDATE] Sift Acquires Chargeback.com for an Undisclosed Amount.
Chargeback.com is the first real-time dispute management platform built to empower internal teams with robust automation and expert knowledge.
For starters, the company uses its industry knowledge and connections to open a direct line of communication with issuers so merchants can get early warning dispute notifications from a network of global banks and merchants.
Then, when chargebacks are filed, the platform uses an API integration to automate meaningful actions and eliminate the excessive time traditionally spent researching, crafting, and submitting successful dispute responses. that can save merchant’s fees and lost revenue.
