Stop Chargeback Fraud with Device Evidence

Chargeback fraud is when customers report a transaction to their bank or payment provider that claims was unauthorized, yet was legitimate. A chargeback usually will occur after a customer receives the goods or services, leaving you without the product or the payment for it. Fees from payment providers can vary, and usually includes the price of the item plus a chargeback fee tacked on by the provider. This can also lead to your merchant account being flagged as high-risk, and with too high of a chargeback rate can lead to your account being terminated.

Customers can exploit the consumer protection system by telling their bank a purchase was unauthorized or fraudulent. Banks, wanting to do right by their customer, will side with them initially and reverse the payment while investigating the claim. The burden of proof falls on the merchant, and most businesses will struggle to provide the correct evidence to win the claim. Most customers performing chargebacks are aware of how the system works, and will target businesses that they believe can't fight back.

Device fingerprinting creates a unique identity for every visitor to your website by analyzing details given by their browser, device, and how they behave on the site. cside's solution generates these identifiers with further telemetry like installed plugins, screen resolution, and dozens of other little details that can determine who you are. This fingerprint remains consistent across sites, even if a customer changes their account or card, giving you the upper hand in proving they truly were the one who made the purchase.

With cside's device fingerprinting technology, every purchase can be linked to a unique identifier that tracks the customer's behavior through their entire journey on your site. In the end, you'll have a complete record of everything they used to make the purchase - giving you concrete evidence proving that their device was used for the purchase, and effectively disproving it was unauthorized at all.

Traditional fraud tries proactively to block suspicious transactions before the sale happens, but chargeback fraud happens after the sale happens. Most security measures aren't going to be able to identify customers who are going to try and dispute a charge later - because these customers, on paper, look legitimate until they're not. Continuously monitoring customer behavior patterns and device consistency over time allows you to identify repeat offenders.

Costs can vary, but most businesses usually would lose 2-3 times the original price of the transaction, after factoring in lost product, chargeback fees, administrative costs, and higher processing rates as a result of the chargeback. Higher risk industries can see chargeback rates at 5 to 10%, but low-risk industries can expect an average of 0.5-1% of transactions.

By fingerprinting a user's device, it provides your business a competitive advantage by being able to document the customer's journey with timestamps and device consistency data, showing their bank that it indeed was the customer who made the purchase. This evidence just makes it harder for the customer to claim that it was unauthorized.