Chargeback ratio
A merchant's chargebacks measured against their transactions over a period. The schemes monitor it and run programmes for merchants who exceed their thresholds, which can bring extra costs and conditions. The number that matters is the merchant's own trend rather than any single month, because a ratio climbing steadily is a problem long before it crosses anything.
Why it matters to a merchant
Worth watching as your own trend rather than against anybody's threshold, because by the time a threshold is in view the problem has been running for months. A ratio that climbs steadily usually points at something specific and fixable — an unclear descriptor, a product that arrives later than customers expect, a refund process slow enough that people give up and call the bank instead.
Read more: Chargebacks and disputes
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In this section: How a payment moves