Chargeback protection
for high-risk merchants.

What makes a merchant "high-risk"

Acquirers classify risk, not card networks alone, and each acquirer draws the line differently. Common reasons include the industry (recurring billing, travel, nutraceuticals, digital goods, high-ticket electronics), card-not-present and cross-border volume, delayed delivery, a short processing history, or past chargebacks. The label usually means higher fees, rolling reserves and tighter monitoring of your dispute and fraud levels.

What's at stake

• Card-network monitoring programs. Visa's VAMP and Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Program set ratio and count thresholds, with fines and remediation requirements once you exceed them. See chargeback ratio monitoring for the current numbers.
• Termination and the MATCH and VMSS lists. According to Stripe's documentation, acquirers must report merchants they terminate for fraud, severe violations or excessive chargebacks to Mastercard's MATCH or Visa's VMSS, and listings remain active for 5 years. MATCH's "excessive chargebacks" code applies when monthly Mastercard chargebacks exceed 1% of sales transactions and total $5,000 USD or more in the same month. Only the acquirer that added the listing can correct or remove it.
• Acquirer limits. Visa's VAMP fact sheet sets acquirer portfolio thresholds (Above Standard at 0.5%, Excessive at 0.7%), so acquirers have reason to police individual merchants well below the merchant-level limits.

A practical plan

1. Measure the way the networks do. Track disputes and fraud reports per descriptor and per processor each month, not just overall.
2. Stop fraud before it ships. Screen orders, hold high-risk ones, and use 3D Secure where it fits.
3. Remove avoidable disputes. Recognizable descriptors, receipts, delivery updates, easy cancellation and fast refunds.
4. Answer every winnable dispute on time. Late responses are automatic losses; evidence should match the reason code.
5. Document your controls. If you enter a program, your acquirer will ask what you changed and when. Stripe, for example, publishes a remediation template for this.
6. Talk to your acquirer early. A merchant who flags a spike and a fix before the monthly report usually has more options than one who waits.

How Verdikx helps

Verdikx is a fraud, chargeback and dispute platform for e-commerce and SaaS merchants, built by Verdikx LLC (New Jersey, United States).

• One queue across processors. Shopify Payments and Stripe disputes are live; Braintree, Adyen, Checkout.com, Authorize.net, Klarna, Afterpay, WooPayments, Affirm, Worldpay, Cybersource, Airwallex, Rapyd, Mollie and Primer are in beta. Chargeback notices from any processor or bank arrive by email forwarding or CSV. PayPal and Square are coming soon.
• Evidence matched to the reason code, with AI drafts that cite your records, a contradiction finder, and Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 where prior orders qualify.
• Order screening and holds. Risk scores on new Shopify orders (Growth), custom rules with automatic holds (Pro).
• Ratio watch. The Results page shows a dispute-to-order ratio per processor with early-warning bands, so you see a rise before your acquirer does.
• Autopilot (Growth and Pro). Responses prepared on arrival and, if you choose, submitted inside your limits 48 hours before the deadline.
• Several stores and high volume. Every store needs its own plan: install Verdikx on each store and it gets one. Pro screens 50,000 orders a month per store.

What Verdikx does not do

• It is not a high-risk payment processor or merchant account provider. It does not underwrite, hold reserves, or move money, and it cannot get you approved by an acquirer.
• It cannot remove a MATCH or VMSS listing; that rests with the listing acquirer.
• It does not report your official VAMP or ECP numbers; your acquirer and processor do.
• Card-network alerts (Visa RDR, Mastercard Ethoca) are coming soon, not available today.
• Shopify stores install the Verdikx app; merchants elsewhere create a workspace on verdikx.com and pay by card. Talk to us if your risk profile needs a conversation first.
• It does not guarantee outcomes; banks and card networks decide.