Chargebacks in the Real World

ChargebackX Session Recap

Maisa Breve, Customer Operations Manager at Vio

Karlynn Ferris, Customer Resolution Manager at Sunbit

Will Plummer, CEO of Trust My Travel 

Dwayne Gefferie, Moderator

Key Takeaways

• Scale changes everything. Becoming merchant of record is the tipping point where chargeback compliance becomes mandatory.
• Speed plus evidence is the winning formula. Teams that submit complete evidence fast (same day/48 hours) see higher win rates.
• Friendly fraud is surging, especially in travel and U.S. cards; “buyer’s remorse” and issuer-driven disputes are common.
• Automation helps, but judgment matters. Tools streamline intake and documentation, while humans still triage edge cases and ensure evidence quality.
• Data is the backbone. Clear terms, rich checkout data, accurate descriptors, and audit trails are decisive in both prevention and representment.

Introduction

In this session from the inaugural ChargebackX conference, moderator Dwayne Jeffrey (payments strategist) spoke with three leaders who fight disputes at scale across very different models:

• Maisa Breve (Vio) manages customer operations for a hotel booking platform operating as both metasearch and merchant of record.
• Karlynn Ferris (Sunbit is responsible for customer resolution for a BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) provider that finances everyday needs (dental, veterinary, auto).
• Will Plummer (Trust My Travel)  leads a company that serves as a merchant of record and safeguarding solution for travel brands.

Despite coming from different industries and roles, their experience converges on a single theme: merchants need the right mix of automation, process discipline, and human review, grounded in great data, to navigate an evolving chargebacks ecosystem.

Chargebacks Are Now a Business-Critical Function

For many companies, the tipping point is becoming a merchant of record: disputes stop being a back-office task and become a core operating requirement. That’s what happened at Vio.com in 2021. Once Vio.com took on merchant of record responsibility, keeping scheme thresholds in check became non-negotiable. The team worked hard, worked with partners and tightened investigation processes to maintain healthy chargeback rates while scaling.

Sunbit reached a similar inflection in 2021, formalizing a dedicated chargeback team and optimizing for speed. With automation pre-filling case templates and packaging evidence, Sunbit aims to submit disputes the same day or within 48 hours, turning fast, complete filings into a repeatable business edge.

Trust My Travel brings a multi-vertical travel lens. Acting as merchant-of-record across different travel businesses, the team runs a data-first model: rule-based front-end controls (AVS/CVV/velocity) tuned by vertical and region; rich checkout data capture (e.g., travel dates, destination, cardholder location); and MID-per-sub-merchant plus concise descriptors to reduce “charge not recognized.” They also flag anomalies like unusual booking lead times. Even with strong tooling, a human sense-check decides which cases are truly winnable and ensures evidence maps exactly to the reason code, especially important in the U.S., where timelines are shorter, 3DS use is inconsistent, and issuers often tilt toward the cardholder.

Automation vs. Human Judgment

All three teams rely on automation to collect, normalize, and submit chargeback documents at scale. Yet each keeps humans in the loop for:

• Validating that evidence maps precisely to the reason code.
• Spotting mismatches across systems (e.g., booking data vs. processor data).
• Deciding when not to fight a case to avoid wasted cycles.

Each speaker attached different importance to how to deal with chargebacks:

• Sunbit emphasized workflow speed and completeness. 
• Trust My Travel emphasized merchant-specific context, while 
• Vio emphasized investigation and customer-centric resolutions even when the dispute isn’t strictly “legit.”

The Friendly Fraud Problem (and Why It’s Getting Worse)

Travel sees a pronounced rise in friendly fraud: customers who didn’t travel due to weather, schedule, or remorse, then call their bank rather than the merchant, sometimes after acknowledging non-refundable terms. Panelists observed that U.S. issuers frequently prompt or streamline disputes, making “charge not recognized” and “fraud” codes more common and harder to beat.

Post-pandemic behavior accelerated this. Consumers learned how easy bank-side dispute flows can be, especially via neobank portals. In contrast, many EU/UK banks still bury dispute paths deeper in their apps or websites, creating natural friction that reduces frivolous claims.

Vertical Patterns: Why Dental Sees More Than Auto Service

After establishing when chargebacks become business-critical for their respective companies and how regional dynamics differ, the panel turned to vertical-specific patterns. The contrasts are stark, especially inside BNPL. As Karlynn Ferris explained, dental is the industry that consistently sees the highest dispute rates across Sunbit’s portfolio, while auto service trends lower. 

Why dental Buy Now Pay Later spikes:

• Multi-visit, multi-procedure plans: Dental treatment often unfolds over multiple appointments, which creates ambiguity about timing, what was completed, and what remains.
• Insurance confusion: Patients frequently expect insurers to cover more than they do, leading to disputes tied to coverage misunderstandings.
• Higher ticket + remorse: Larger, multi-month plans can trigger second thoughts, e.g., a 12-month installment where the customer has already made five payments and then files a dispute.

Why auto service Buy Now Pay Later looks different:

• One-and-done: Even if several items are fixed in a single appointment, there’s less ongoing ambiguity, so fewer follow-up disputes about the service provided. As a result, there is also less room for confusion and remorse.

The point is: despite operating on the same BNPL rails, different industries can exhibit very different dispute signatures. Dental requires tighter consent flows, clearer plan/coverage communication, and meticulous documentation across visits; auto service benefits from the inherent clarity of a single service event.

The U.S. vs. International Divide

After discussing verticals, the conversation widened to geographical differences, and Will Plummer (Trust My Travel) put it clearly: the U.S. is the hardest place to fight disputes. Part of it is tempo; representment windows are tighter, so if your evidence isn’t assembled and ready fast, you’re already behind. 

Another part of it is posture; issuers are more inclined to side with the cardholder and, as Will noted, sometimes even prompt cardholders to dispute in the first place. Add inconsistent 3-D Secure usage and you get the familiar tradeoff: protect the transaction more aggressively and risk conversion, or keep checkout smooth and accept higher exposure on big-ticket travel.

The UK/EU picture feels steadier. Strong Customer Authentication and more consistent 3DS application create clearer rules of the road, and outcomes are correspondingly more predictable. It’s not friction-free. Teams still balance checkout experience against protection, but the rails themselves do more work. As Dwayne observed, many European banks have historically tucked dispute flows deeper in their apps (even as newer challengers surface them), which dampens the impulse to turn every misunderstanding into a chargeback.

In practice, Trust My Travel allocates more operational energy to the U.S., not because disputes are unwinnable, but because winning there depends on being both faster and cleaner: recognizable descriptors up front, tight evidence that maps precisely to the reason code, and the ability to move in hours, not days.

Prevent, Then Defend

The cheapest chargeback is the one that never happens. Across the panel, prevention looked like a handful of simple habits done relentlessly, and tuned by vertical and region.

1.  Design for recognition and consent (at checkout).
   • Make sure the buyer can see who is charging them. Trust My Travel shortens its own domain and appends the sub-merchant name in the descriptor (via per-MID setups) so “charge not recognized” is less likely.
   • Capture explicit acceptance. Sunbit’s flows collect each screen the customer saw plus a final signature/contract, which later anchors representment. In travel, Vio.com and Trust My Travel emphasize a visible T&Cs checkbox + timestamp for non-refundable terms.
   • Record context, not just card data. Travel dates, destination, cardholder location/device, and IP create a coherent story of intent you can defend later.

1. Calibrate risk at the edge (without stifling conversion).
   • Use AVS/CVV, velocity checks, and rule tolerances that match the business (tours vs. hotels vs. airlines; dental vs. auto). Trust My Travel varies thresholds by sub-merchant and even flags odd booking lead times (e.g., safaris bought two weeks out).
   • 3DS where it counts. In the UK/EU, strong SCA norms help. In the U.S., apply 3DS selectively (high ticket, cross-border, unusual patterns) to balance acceptance and protection.

1. Close the loop after purchase.
   • Receipts that restate the descriptor (“you’ll see this as…”) reduce “I don’t recognize it.”
   • Pre-billing nudges on first installments (BNPL) or upcoming travel dates jog memory and deflect avoidable disputes.
   • If a dispute alert lands, reach out fast; several panelists convert bank disputes into merchant-managed refunds/adjustments when there’s a genuine misunderstanding.

When a dispute does land, defend with discipline:

1. File fast, file complete. Sunbit targets same-day to 48 hours with cases that auto-include the application flow, signed contract, and payment schedule.
2. Map evidence to the reason code. Trust My Travel’s “sense-check” trims weak cases and ensures what you submit actually answers the issuer’s question.
3. Investigate edge cases. If a hotel claims “no record,” Vio.com validates with both sides; if the guest truly couldn’t stay, they refund or ask the cardholder to withdraw, faster and fairer than waiting out the cycle.
4. Tune by region. Expect tougher scrutiny (and shorter clocks) in the U.S.; in the UK/EU, SCA helps, but disciplined packets still decide close calls.

What we learned from the session was pairing best practices:

• Recognizable descriptors that are reinforced by post-purchase communications; 
• Checkout that proves intent (clear consent plus context) and not just authorization;
• A rapid representment cadence with reason-code-specific evidence; and, most importantly, using human judgment for triage and to ensure narrative coherence. 

Prevention keeps volumes down; process wins the cases you choose to fight. Teams that do both don’t just survive chargebacks, they scale through them, by improving their underlying business processes.

Tooling That Moves the Needle

Chargeback management tools don’t win cases on their own, but the right tool stack makes good process repeatable at scale. Here are the categories the panel relies on.

• Case assembly & submission platforms (e.g., Justt): centralize intake, auto-attach application flows and signatures, and standardize representments by reason code.
  
• Fraud/risk partners (e.g., Forter, per Vio.com): reduce bad transactions before they become disputes.
  
• Custom rule engines: per-vertical thresholds, MID-level monitoring, and anomaly flags (e.g., unusual booking lead times for safaris).
  

Across the board, no single tool solves it all. Winners orchestrate a stack, ensure evidence discipline, and keep humans focused on high-judgment calls.

AI: Where It Helps (and Where It Doesn’t. Yet)

Now: AI is valuable for pattern detection and scale analytics (e.g., surfacing anomaly clusters by merchant, product, geography, reason code). It frees people to focus on escalations and negotiation.

Not yet: Replacing human review in nuanced, customer-sensitive cases. Teams are cautious about automated outreach and “agentic” actions that could complicate authorization provenance and liability.

Final Takeaways from the Panel

• Data quality is destiny. If you can’t prove it, you won’t win it.
• Speed matters. Submitting complete evidence quickly improves outcomes.
• Design for recognition. Clean descriptors and proactive reminders reduce “I don’t recognize this” disputes.
• Tune by vertical and region. Dental ≠ auto; U.S. ≠ EU. Calibrate rules and evidence expectations accordingly.
• Fight smart. Don’t represent on hope, represent on proof.

Ready to Reduce Chargebacks?

This panel, spanning travel and BNPL, shows that prevention, speed, and evidence win. Justt operationalizes that with automation, data, and dispute experts built for scale. See Justt in action →

FAQs

Why are friendly fraud rates so high in travel?

Travel combines higher tickets, non-refundable terms, weather/schedule surprises, and remote fulfillment. Consumers often find it easier to call their bank than the merchant, especially in the U.S.

What’s the fastest way to reduce “charge not recognized”?

Use merchant-specific descriptors (or “on behalf of” phrasing), send post-purchase receipts that restate the descriptor, and consider pre-billing reminders with merchant name + amount + date.

What evidence wins BNPL disputes?

Signed application flows, explicit consent screens, IP/device stamps, the signed contract, and payment history (e.g., five successful months before a dispute) show recognition and intent.

How should a travel merchant handle “no record of reservation”?

Investigate with both hotel and customer immediately. If the hotel truly lacks the record, refund proactively (or ask the customer to withdraw the dispute and process the refund directly). Submit clear evidence if the reservation did exist (confirmation IDs, supplier logs, check-in data).

Why does dental see more disputes than auto service?

Multi-visit plans, complex insurance interactions, and higher totals create misunderstanding and remorse. Clear treatment plans, consent flows, and transparent financing schedules reduce downstream friction.

Does 3-D Secure fix this?

It helps, especially in the UK/EU, by shifting liability and strengthening authentication. In the U.S., inconsistent adoption limits its effect. Use 3DS selectively on higher-risk profiles to balance conversion and protection.

What should my team prioritize if we’re just getting started?

1. Centralize evidence collection; 
2. Template representments by reason code; 
3. Tighten descriptors & comms;
4. Instrument checkout to capture consent + context;
5. Measure speed to submit and iterate.

Where does Justt fit?

Justt consolidates intake, structures evidence to the right reason codes, and submits on your behalf, so your team can stay focused on prevention design, outreach, and high-judgment cases.