Representment is a real word, despite what spellcheck might think. You may not recognize the term, but if you’re a merchant, representment can help you out big time. Representment is the process by which merchants can dispute a chargeback and recover the revenue at stake.

Representment Fundamentals

  1. Get your money! Let’s be clear on what your goal is with representment: when a dispute threatens a transaction’s revenue, representment is how the merchant fights back. While you can issue a representment before a chargeback is issued, once a chargeback is initiated, it stays on your record even if your representment is successful. That’s a bummer for sure, but the up-side is you get to keep the money from the transaction.
  2. Check the reason code, of which there are many! As a general rule, qualitative reason codes are the ones you’ll want to fight, including anything that looks like friendly fraud. If you can prove that the cardholder used their own card, voluntarily, and received what they paid for, this is a good case for representment. Always represent against friendly fraud, because if you don’t, that cardholder will most likely file more chargebacks in the future.
  3. Keep compelling evidence. This is by far the most important step. The cardholder’s word is enough to initiate a chargeback, but the merchant needs a mountain of proof to reverse it. You must have proof beyond doubt that the cardholder purchased, received and consumed the item in question. Without compelling evidence, you do not have a case for representment.

The Problem

In a perfect world, you make a sale and you get the money, end of story. However in these days of rising credit card fraud, more consumers are scrutinizing their bank statements and some are even openly gaming the system. When a cardholder sees a charge they don’t recognize, they call their bank. Banks routinely grant chargebacks to refund their customer, almost as a common courtesy. Chargebacks are so easy that anyone can abuse them to get your product and take their money back too.

This “friendly fraud” is now the fastest growing ecommerce crime as a result. For example, Visa reported that in fiscal year 2012, merchants faced a total $11.8 Billion in loses from this type of fraud. That’s compared to identity theft, which totaled $2.7 billion in the same year. VISA estimates that rates of friendly fraud increase roughly 20% each year, meaning the 2019 number has more than doubled since 2012.

The merchant has been completely locked out of preventing this rise, until now.

The Solution: Representment

When the merchant makes a sale, they submit the transaction to receive the funds from the customer bank; this is called “presentment.” Chargebacks reverse the presentment process. Hence “representment” is re-submitting a presentment that was reversed by a disputed transaction. It’s the merchant asserting their right to that transaction’s revenue.

Until now, a merchant could only pursue representment after the first presentment is declined by a chargeback, which takes the merchant’s revenue and gives it back to the cardholder. The merchant then has to represent the charge with any additional compelling evidence to prove the cardholder made the purchase. The merchant paid the chargeback penalties AND their processing score took a hit, regardless if their representment succeeded. Representment has been such a hassle that half of all friendly fraud chargebacks go unchallenged by merchants.

Resources on Compelling Evidence

Represent with ChargebackHelp

ChargebackHelp is changing that for merchants. We’ve always taken an aggressive stance against friendly fraud chargebacks for our clients, by fighting the right disputes, helping to capture and organize our merchants’ transaction data, and promptly pressing their case against chargebacks. Now, we are able to send compelling evidence directly to the cardholder as soon as the transaction appears on their statement.

If a transaction descriptor confuses a cardholder, they can now drill down into their online statement and get better product descriptions, merchant contact info, delivery confirmations, purchasing device ID and more. It’s all sent in real time, before the cardholder can even scratch their head, let alone file a chargeback.

With ChargebackHelp Representment, your revenue stays right where it belongs—in your bank. We don’t just “reverse” chargebacks; we also prevent them. That means no lost revenue, no penalties, and better processing scores. ChargebackHelp has tremendous experience with successful representment, such that we can guarantee your ROI on representment cases. Together with our merchants, we are helping to tip the scales against friendly fraud.

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