Chargeback vs Refund: Why It Matters, Fraud or Not

As any merchant in the online landscape will tell you, chargebacks are one of the biggest headaches of ecommerce.

Chargebacks are costly in terms of both the money being output, as well as necessitating a significant investment in customer-facing infrastructure. In 2023, Chargebacks 911 estimates that the cost of a single chargeback will average to $190 each.

Meanwhile, refunds will naturally be less costly but still require significant resources to make sure refunds don’t tip over into chargebacks. Financial data analysts variously report that in 2023, the volume of refunds issue within ecommerce will run over $200 billion in 2023, a number that any company will tell you they hope to not compound by letting their refund rate spill over into a higher chargeback volume due to poor customer service or inadequate information on the website.

Lets take a deep dive into the differences and similarities between chargebacks and refunds, and examine how to reduce both at your business.

What’s the Difference Between a Chargeback and a Refund?

Though both chargebacks and refunds are mechanisms to return processed funds to unsatisfied customers, the main difference is whether the merchant repays these funds of their own volition, as with a refund, or else at the request of their issuing bank, in the case of chargeback.

As the chargeback process involves a comprehensive protocol on the part of the bank, the chargeback process is much more convoluted and costly than a refund request. Chargebacks are usually what customers turn to when a merchant’s refund process is either inaccessible or slow.

The Differences between Chargebacks & Refunds Compared

What are Double Refund Chargebacks?

Double refund chargebacks are where the customer collects two repayments, both a chargeback and a refund, on a product they were unsatisfied with. It represents the worst possible outcome in terms of damage to returns, as the refund is essentially paid twice, and the costs of the chargeback are also taken on. In many cases this could mean double or triple the loss for a single instance of double refund chargeback.

Friendly fraudsters may intentionally initiate this, contacting both their bank and the merchant at the same time to begin the chargeback and refund process. They collect both repayments and saddle the merchant with the chargeback processing fees, and in many cases in the modern world of digital fulfilment and no-return policies, also gets to keep the product.

For non-nefarious customers, double refund chargebacks occur most often when the language surrounding the two processes is unclear. If a refund is taking too long to come through, a customer may assume that this function of the merchant is broken or, again, unsatisfactory, then initiate a chargeback to recoup their loss. This may end up with the merchant fulfilling both requests. To avoid this, companies should make sure the language around their refund policy is clear, including the expected timeframes for refund requests to be fulfilled.

How Do Chargebacks and Refunds Work?

Both chargebacks and refunds are processes that return processed funds to the customer, either by the merchant repaying the customer for the price of their purchase themselves or else through the merchant’s acquiring bank.

Notably, both these forms of compensation are done with a separate payment that is equal to the initial expenditure, as opposed to a payment reversal, wherein the exact same funds that were spent are simply redirected back to the customer. Payment reversals are enabled by digital payment processing times and have a limited window during which they can be initiated.

The process leading up to either a refund or chargeback is the same. Where they two diverge from another is after the customer decides they are unsatisfied with their purchase, and then finds one or the other more convenient. Whether this falls on the side of refund or chargeback is largely up to how well-equipped the merchant is to handle refunds quickly and efficiently, and how specific the language surrounding these policies is.

Chargeback flows typically look like this:

From this, it should be clear that the chargeback process represents a sizeable commitment of resources, on top of the mounting fees associated with the arbitration process and the chargeback itself.

Why Merchants Should Care about the Difference Between Chargebacks and Refunds

Both refunds and chargebacks represent a net loss for the merchant. Neither is a target outcome for any company, but refunds are certainly preferable to the costs associated with chargebacks.

In the case of a refund, the customer’s money gets returned, and the product gets reclaimed, but in many cases cannot now be resold at full price, if at all. A refund request is when a customer, be they a fraudster or not, asks for their money back from the merchant, rather than from their card-issuing bank. The resources spent on processing this refund, including the customer service itself and the processing of the returned item (if physical), represents the expenditure for the merchant.

With a chargeback, the same individual would be placing that request with their bank instead. The product, if physical, may or may not be returned, but the merchant will also return their money and be burdened with the chargeback processing fee. 

This seemingly minuscule difference has a ripple effect, because it means that with refunds, there are no intermediaries, and the merchant has much more control of the process as well as insight into the claim and how it will be resolved.

Cost of Refunds vs Cost of Chargebacks

Though both mechanisms involve the returning of outlaid money to a customer, refunds only have the added cost of customer service infrastructure and any processing fees, whereas chargebacks require even more infrastructure during the arbitration process, as well as the fees for that arbitration, which may often cost more than the returned money itself.

To a customer, the two processes might seem almost identical. In fact, the chargeback workflow with their bank might even feel smoother than approaching a merchant as a customer and explaining why you should receive your money back. 

It should be acknowledged that though chargebacks are in place to protect consumer rights, and rightly so, merchants are certainly at a disadvantage. This is because it is very difficult to do chargeback recovery, which entails showing ample proof that the products or goods were in the expected condition, that they were delivered to the shopper, that the merchant has taken all recommended steps to ensure the payment was legitimate, and so on.

So, in the case of refunds, a merchant can more easily challenge the customer’s claim if it is false (and thus a case of friendly fraud). If your Terms and Conditions are bulletproof, you might also choose to explain to the customer that they do not have a legitimate claim for a refund.  

Therefore, the cost of chargebacks is amplified by the fact they are less likely to be blocked by the merchant – be they fraudulent, fraud-related, or legitimate. 

Wondering how much chargeback and other fraud could be costing your business? The calculator below can help you get an estimate.

11 Reasons Why It’s Better to Issue Refunds than Chargebacks for Merchants

There are several benefits to trying to encourage refunds instead of chargebacks:

1. Little or no fees: By dealing directly with the customer, even if the business needs to return the money, a merchant avoids paying the banks and payment processors’ admin and processing charges – including the dreaded chargeback penalty.
   
2. Keeps you on good terms with banks: Refunds have no impact on the merchant’s chargeback ratio. If the chargeback rate of a business is high, they will be forced by the bank and payment processors to pay higher admin and processing fees on all their transactions. Get it too high, and you can’t even trade with customers who use this type of card issuer. In simple terms, you won’t be able to process any Visa or Mastercard cards, for example.
   
3. Can save the sale: There will be instances where the customer who initially approached you for a refund is happy to receive a replacement product or a voucher instead of their money back. This means you can still save the sale or at least encourage them to return to your shop later on.
   
4. More checks and balances: As a merchant, you know your items better. When a customer claims they are not as expected, you can provide guidance and troubleshooting before considering a refund. You can even ask to see pictures or videos that demonstrate the issue, for added certainty.
   
5. Catch friendly fraud: Opportunistic fraud is easier to identify if you deal directly with the customer, as you can ask for details and proof before refunding. The onus of proof is on them, and they are dealing with you, rather than convincing a third party such as a bank.
   
6. Happier customers: By speaking to them directly, the merchant is able to – or at least can try to – ensure the customer is still happy and might be returning. Importantly, it becomes obvious that it is the shop that helped the customer and demonstrated goodwill, rather than the bank helping them.
   
7. Identify quality issues: For genuinely faulty items, the merchant can find out which of their stock isn’t working out for customers and choose to change suppliers, their delivery company or other partners. This is because with a refund request, the merchant can ask the customer for additional information about what went wrong.
   
8. Quality control: Both the quality of the items or services as well as that of the promises made by advertisements, marketing and other communications can be monitored and potentially ameliorated according to information sourced from refund requests. For example, a merchant could realize their listing on a marketplace is misleading and customers often misinterpret it.
   
9. Allows for supplier negotiations: The merchant can turn to their own supplier to resolve any quality or other issues, or can even potentially request a refund.
   
10. Quicker resolution: Refunds are much quicker to deal with than chargebacks. This also has a knock-on effect on customer satisfaction and on merchant resources and workload.
    
11. No reputational damage: Refunds tend to work to the benefit of shops, while chargebacks are more likely to cause reputational damage. In fact, a low refund rate is often a good metric for high-quality customer service: It has the joint benefit of suggesting that refunds are not only rarely needed, but when they are requested, they will likely be met with cooperation from the merchant.

As a merchant, you have every reason to stress to your customers that they can come to you with any refund requests. Make your support team easy to reach too, monitoring your email closely and even employing a chatbot or live chat option.

How to Encourage Customers to Request Refunds, not Chargebacks

One of the most cost-effective ways to mitigate against the headache of chargeback fraud is to gently encourage your customers to request refunds instead. So, how do you do this? 

It starts with customer service. As we have seen, it is more intuitive and less time-consuming for a customer to ask for their money back from the shop than the bank, when they can find a way to do so.

In fact, one could even say it is more convenient. Indeed, customers are more likely to instinctively turn to their merchant rather than the bank if they can find a way to contact them. This is even the case online, perhaps because of bricks-and-mortar habits.

• Make your contact options easy to find on your website. 
• Consider employing a chatbot to serve customers via social media. 
• Monitor Twitter and other platforms for complaints against you, and be proactive.
• Depending on the size of your venture, you can also consider employing a dedicated billing support team available to reach via your website, for even easier contact. 

In a similar vein, consider adapting your messaging to stress how happy you are to help with any issues at all. Finally, the Terms and Conditions section of your website should be up-to-date and easy to understand. If your shipping policies are on the complicated side, consider simplifying them, or providing a FAQ section to make them easier to grasp.

Chargeback Prevention

In reality, a merchant will want to prevent chargebacks and refunds alike. And the way to do this depends on the various types of schemes out there.

Overall, you’ll want to take a look at your online store policies, as well as into employing reliable, sophisticated software for order management and for fraud prevention. 

Refund Management Software

In terms of mitigating losses to refunds, chargeback fraud and chargebacks, fraud prevention software can go a long way.

These are better implemented proactively rather than after the fact. Common touchpoints include customer sign-up, customer authentication and check-out.

The idea is for the software to be able to gather as much reliable information about your shoppers without affecting their shopping experience. To do this, fraud prevention software employs technology such as device fingerprinting, velocity checks, IP address analysis and more.

In the case of SEON in particular, the unique digital footprint analysis feature does not just catch professional fraudsters by sourcing live data from 50+ online sources; it also helps confirm whether a legitimate customer is indeed who they say they are, so you know when to trust them.

The resulting data points will inform a fraud score that shows exactly how likely the customer is to present a risk of fraud, at present or down the line, which can then be actioned accordingly.

Refund Policy Tips and Strategies to Reduce Fraud

Moreover, in the battle against fraud, it helps immensely to assess and even adjust your policies as an online store. 

• Employ authorization holds: One way in which merchants can prevent refunds as well as chargebacks is by using the card purchase authorization system. This is where a hold is placed on the payment amount yet this amount isn’t released to the merchant until a few days later. If something goes wrong, the authorization hold money can simply be released – which is neither a refund nor a chargeback. For all intents and purposes, it is as if the payment was never made.
• Keep good records: Both to ensure the quality of product and the delivery and to be able to challenge chargeback and refund requests, keeping meticulous records of inventory, sales and dispatches can go a long way for a merchant. These records can also be input into fraud solutions to better detect fraud in your company’s future.
• Invest in your messaging: By communicating your shipping, refund, and other policies to your customers in your messaging, you are more likely to be seen as an approachable merchant who they can work with to resolve any issues.
• Make it easy to navigate your store: There’s no use having customer-friendly policies and detailed messaging available if they are not easy to find. Make sure your store is easy to navigate and the information is accessible. 
• Optimize your refund policy: Many customers are simply disappointed their shopping experience didn’t return the result they expected. Consider offering up alternative products, exchanges and substitutions instead of money back. You can also gently nudge customers to accept a voucher or gift card instead, perhaps even adding up a discount coupon as a gesture of goodwill. 
• Review T&Cs: A simple but effective way to minimize unpleasant surprises linked to refunds and chargebacks is to have a legal professional review and fine-tune your Terms and Conditions, and ensure they align with your strategy and risk appetite. 

How SEON Stops Refund and Chargeback Fraud

SEON has extensive experience not only in helping merchants to stop fraud related to chargebacks and refunds, but also to approve with confidence as many trustworthy transactions as possible.

Available as an end-to-end platform or modular APIs, the intelligence SEON provides on shoppers is second to none. 

This doesn’t simply mean weeding out bad actors. It allows you to be confident that the person who is buying from you is who they say they are. In the case of legitimate shoppers, for instance, this can help minimize friendly fraud too – as it’s called when committed by the legitimate cardholder. 

Importantly, this intelligence is gathered without introducing any friction to the customer’s experience. Instead, we rely on the shopper’s email address, bank card information, device configuration, IP address and other given factors, enriching these primary data points from 50+ sources to create complete profiles with no interruption to a normal user experience.

This way, SEON enables fraud prevention that puts up minimal points of friction, does not cause churn and allows you to be as strict or as loose as your risk appetite calls for, minimizing false positives.

FAQ

Sources

• Statista: Change in fraud levels experienced by online merchants worldwide in 2021, by type, by Qualtrics

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