Prevention alerts are a valuable chargeback management tool. But unfortunately, not all chargebacks can be intercepted with an alert.
The Primary Reason Why Alerts Can’t Prevent All Chargebacks
To understand prevention alert coverage, it’s helpful to understand how they work.
Prevention alerts are provided by two vendors: Ethoca and Verifi. These vendors maintain networks that issuing banks can join. Banks can participate in Ethoca’s network, Verifi’s network, both networks, or neither network.
If a bank is a member of a network, the bank can send an alert when a transaction is disputed. However, if the bank is not part of a network, the dispute will automatically advance to a chargeback and you won’t receive an alert.
Since participation in a prevention alert network is optional, some issuing banks have opted not to use this service. Other banks don’t have the data capabilities or technology to support this service. This is the primary reason why you don’t receive an alert for all disputes.
Here is the workflow in more detail:
Other Reasons Why Prevention Alerts Are Less Effective
If you sign up for both Ethoca and Verifi prevention alerts, you should be able to prevent about 30-40% of disputes from becoming chargebacks.
If your results are below this average, there may be other things happening:
You Don’t Receive Alerts From Both Ethoca and Verifi
The basic functionality of both alert providers is the same. However, the way they go about providing that functionality is slightly different.
VERIFI
Originally created to help merchants resolve issues resulting from non-fraud, consumer disputes
Strong presence in US, expanding into international regions
ETHOCA
Originally created to help merchants resolve issues resulting from legitimate credit card fraud
Strong presence in both US and international regions
If you want the most complete protection possible, we recommend you accept prevention alerts from both Ethoca and Verifi. This ensures you receive alerts for as many dispute categories and geographical regions as possible.
If you are looking for additional information on Ethoca & Verifi, please reference the following article: What is the difference between Ethoca & Verifi?
If you still have questions about prevention alert coverage, contact our client success team. We’ll review your results and help you optimize performance.
If this feature isn’t visible in your Midigator account and you want to know why, read this article.