News

Table of Contents

• Overview
• The Problem With Chargebacks
• Verifi Order Insight
• Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0
• MidMetrics Dashboards
• How MidMetrics Optimizes Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0
• Conclusion

 

Overview

Visa is implementing new changes to its chargeback policies that affect both pre- and post-chargeback procedures. These changes, known as Compelling Evidence 3.0, work with Visa’s pre-dispute tool Verifi Order Insight as well as transforming the representment process for chargebacks that occur under Visa reason code 10.4. These are powerful, complex tools that merchants can best utilize with the support of the MidMetrics platform’s transaction data aggregation and chargeback analytics dashboards, as well as the expertise of MidMetrics’ chargeback specialists.

 

The Problem With Chargebacks

The most obvious and immediate issue with chargebacks is that they cost money, both in terms of the lost revenue from the transactions that are charged back and any fees levied in the process. But chargebacks also have less tangible, immediate consequences. These can include brand damage, operational costs, and poor customer experiences. Even businesses that generally do not have to worry about the financial losses or penalties of excessive chargebacks can still be harmed by these other consequences.

Chargebacks also cause problems in terms of operational difficulties relating to preventing, fighting, or responding to chargebacks. There are multiple parties involved in the vastly complex payments ecosystem and the communications process surrounding chargebacks often leave out the merchants and businesses on the receiving end of the chargebacks. Often, it involves communications between cardholders and banks, with the merchants only being informed of the proceedings too late in the process. Visa’s tools like Verifi Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0 allow merchants to situate themselves much earlier and more centrally in the chargeback process. Importantly, it enables them to digitally participate in the customer dispute call with the issuer’s representative.

 

Verifi Order Insight

Visa acquired the payment protection firm Verifi in 2019. Among the first results of this partnership was the transformation of the Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry tool into Verifi Order Insight. Order Insight’s platform integrates with top credit card issuers’ systems and allows all parties to access the relevant order details needed to resolve disputes before they become chargebacks.

When the customer elects to call their card issuer, Order Insight provides the issuer’s representatives with the information they need to identify instances of potential fraud, flag suspicious cardholders, or resolve cases of legitimate confusion before the dispute becomes a chargeback. The information that Order Insight collects includes the date of purchase, the device used to process the purchase, merchant name and contact info, and details and descriptors for the purchased item or service.

Because Order Insight’s place in the transaction dispute process occurs before a chargeback is filed, successful uses will prevent chargebacks entirely and not affect the merchant’s chargeback ratio. Visa’s latest changes to its chargeback tools can be used pre-chargeback in conjunction with Order Insight but are more prominently designed for the part of the process that occurs after a chargeback is filed. 

 

Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0

Last summer, Visa announced important changes to the chargeback representment process, dubbed Compelling Evidence 3.0. Visa explained that these charges will enable merchants to immediately respond to claims of first party fraud by cardholders, a problem that has increased in recent years due in large part to the increase in card-not-present (CNP) transactions. While Visa expects that Compelling Evidence 3.0 will benefit merchants, making use of it will necessitate adjustments from merchants.

Visa has updated its rules for merchant responses to chargebacks that carry the reason code 10.4 for “Fraud—Card Absent Environment”. Titled Compelling Evidence 3.0, these new rules offer merchants guidelines on how to respond to fraud claims on CNP transactions that they believe to have actually been legitimate transactions. If the merchant provides the evidence as befitting these new guidelines, the liability will be shifted from the merchant and acquirer to the issuer for any ensuing chargeback.

Merchants can successfully dispute 10.4 chargebacks under Compelling Evidence 3.0 by presenting evidence of previous, non-fraudulent transactions with the same cardholder.   

A Visa webinar explains what information is required from merchants under Compelling Evidence 3.0:

1. Minimum of two transactions on the same payment method that settled at least 120 days prior to the dispute date. Each must be non-disputed and non-fraud.
2. At least two of the core data elements match between prior transactions and the disputed transaction and one of the two must be either IP address or Device ID.

The core data elements are: customer account/login ID, IP address, shipping address, and device ID/device fingerprint.

Compelling Evidence 3.0 can be used in the pre-dispute stage through Verifi Order Insight or post-dispute through VROL during the pre-arbitration stage. The pre-dispute option includes the added benefit of deflecting the chargeback, preventing it from affecting the merchant’s chargeback ratio.

Compelling Evidence 3.0 is an update of Visa’s previous rules, which have been in place since 2013. Under previous standards, the compelling evidence rules for reason code 10.4 required that merchants provide all of the following: IP address, email address, physical address, and telephone number. For digital goods downloaded, merchants were required to provide two or more of the following: IP address, device ID, purchaser name, and an email address linked to the same customer account/profile. The outgoing rules only required one previous undisputed transaction while the new rules require two. The old rules also had no time specifications, while the new rules require the previously undisputed transactions to be more than 120 days before the disputed transaction.

The old chargeback rules allowed issuers to make the case for merchant liability even if the merchant provided the required evidence. Under Compelling Evidence 3.0, issuers will have to accept liability for any ensuing chargebacks if the merchant provides the required evidence. Merchants will also still be able to dispute 10.4 chargebacks with other evidence if they do not have what is required by the Compelling Evidence 3.0 rules. But any representment efforts outside of Compelling Evidence 3.0 do not have the same guaranteed shift of liability to the issuer and may not be eligible for the pre-dispute resolution through Order Insight. 

Visa intends for Compelling Evidence 3.0 to be used to prove a prior relationship and transaction history between cardholder and merchant. It is meant to standardize information for these cases, making it easier for issuers to recognize the relationship between the cardholder and the merchant. When 10.4 chargebacks are fraudulently or mistakenly filed, the use of Compelling Evidence 3.0’s standards should enable all parties to recognize and accept the merchant’s rebuttal to those first-party fraud claims.

Compelling Evidence 3.0 will take effect on April 15, 2023. For more information about it, click here.

 

MidMetrics Dashboards

MidMetrics offers chargeback analytics dashboards that are designed to help merchants efficiently manage their transaction ecosystem. The robust data aggregation and analytics features and capabilities seamlessly support all Verifi chargeback prevention and management solutions. These customizable dashboards allow merchants to view their entire chargeback ecosystem and easily organize all of their chargeback data in whatever configurations are most pertinent to their chargeback needs.

MidMetrics dashboards give merchants a powerful, real-time adaptive tool for monitoring the health of their MIDs at all stages throughout the chargeback ecosystem. They provide an unmatched level of control and depth of valuable information. Additionally, MidMetrics analytics dashboards integrate with chargeback prevention alerts, a representments solution, Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR), and Order Insight.

 

How MidMetrics Optimizes Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0

Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0 offer merchants tremendous opportunities to reduce the financial losses, long term consequences, and brand damage from first party fraud. But these tools are complicated and can be difficult to optimize. MidMetrics has the tools, expertise, and experience to help merchants make the most of Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0

The world of payments is a complex ecosystem of issuing banks, acquiring banks, card brands, payments processors, merchants, cardholders, and innumerable intermediaries and solutions providers. Within this system, the parties are constantly exchanging information across various systems and under various formats. Without the right tools to capture, aggregate, and organize this information, merchants may not be fully aware of how well their chargeback and MID health solutions are performing.

Because Order Insight is a pre-dispute process, its results can be lost in the fog without merchants even being aware that it has saved them from a chargeback. MidMetrics dashboards alleviate this problem by tracking and sorting every instance of Order Insight being used in response to a cardholder dispute, whether it results in a successful deflection of a chargeback, a refund willingly issued by the merchant, an unsuccessful attempt that further progresses to a chargeback, or any other result. Having access to this information in easily sortable formats allows merchants to analyze their Order Insight data and maximize its usefulness.

On the post-chargeback side of this process, Compelling Evidence 3.0 is an extremely valuable tool for winning representments from 10.4 chargebacks, which often make up a significant portion of Visa chargebacks. But taking advantage of this tool requires that the chargeback occurs under very specific circumstances and that the merchant has the proper evidence to dispute their legitimacy. The powerful data analytics of MidMetrics allows merchants to easily gather the necessary evidence, decide whether or not it indicates that Compelling Evidence 3.0 is appropriate, and provide that evidence to Visa in order to take advantage of the program.

Because Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0 operate in real time, they require complex software integrations in order to facilitate the API exchanges. Some merchants may struggle to complete the setup process without assistance. Fortunately, MidMetrics has extensive experience in setting up Visa chargeback tools, including Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0. Our experts can assist merchants in bridging the data gaps and aggregating Verifi, gateway, processor and internal systems data under one platform, including helping to implement any necessary customizations.

MidMetrics has experience as an early adopter of Visa and Verifi tools, including Order Insight. MidMetrics’ experience with these tools comes from both firsthand use and from helping merchants set up and optimize Order Insight, RDR, alerts, and other tools for their businesses. This experience and familiarity make MidMetrics the perfect partner for businesses looking to implement Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0.

 

Conclusion

10.4 chargebacks make up a significant portion of total chargebacks and an even larger portion of first party fraudulent chargebacks. Order Insight and Compelling Evidence 3.0 are both valuable tools for preventing these disputes from becoming chargebacks or successfully fighting them once they advance to the chargeback stage. But making the best use of these tools often requires the sort of assistance that MidMetrics can provide, both through our chargeback analytics dashboards and our expertise regarding Visa chargeback solutions. Allow MidMetrics to help you make the most of Verifi Order Insight and Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0.