Payments
Chargeback
A chargeback is a forced reversal of a card payment initiated by the cardholder through their issuing bank rather than through the merchant.
Beyond the lost revenue and the fee, chargebacks count against a merchant's dispute ratio, and sustained ratios above network thresholds bring monitoring programmes, higher costs and eventually loss of processing.
For subscription businesses the most common cause is not fraud but recognition: a renewal the customer forgot they had authorized. Clear billing descriptors, renewal reminders before the charge, and a cancellation path that is genuinely easier than a dispute all reduce the rate more than any representment strategy.