Reduce Your Chargeback Risk

When Your Jewelry Customers Pay by Credit Card

© by Lance Rich; all rights reserved

Jewelry customers tend to spend more on their purchase
when they can pay by credit card.

Accepting credit and debit cards is an excellent way to grow your business and increase customer satisfaction.

However, it can also increase the possibility of fraud or disputed transactions.

Cardholders can dispute a transaction up to 120 days after making the purchase. Such a dispute is called a chargeback.

ProPay has outlined 3 simple ways to reduce the likelihood of chargebacks:

1. Communicate with your customers
what will appear on their
credit-card statements

Sometimes customers don't recognize a charge or a company name on their statement and dispute the transaction with their issuing bank.

When a chargeback occurs, those funds are removed from the merchant's account and a fee is charged.

Letting your customers know in advance exactly what company name and charge will appear on their statement may help them recognize the charge and prevent the dispute.

Make sure your customers will recognize
their purchase of your jewelry
when it's listed on their credit card statement.

Your phone number will also appear with the transaction giving the customer the ability to contact you if they have questions.

It is also a good idea to encourage your customers to communicate their card purchases to their spouses or significant others to avoid confusion.

2. Gather detailed documentation
on every sale

If one of your customers issues a chargeback, the transaction amount is conditionally returned to them.

However, if you (the merchant) have detailed documentation of your sale, you can issue a rebuttal to have the funds returned to you.

The better your documentation, the better your chances of winning your rebuttal.

Detailed documentation should include a receipt signed by the cardholder. Order forms, invoices, and bills of sale are also effective.

3. Verify your customer's address -
especially if you're shipping
or don't have an established relationship.

Sometimes your sales are not face-to-face, and your customer asks to have products shipped to them.

Without a way to get a signature, or to view the actual card, you may not be completely comfortable with a particular customer or transaction.

Safeguard your jewelry business
and keep your customers shopping happily.

A good way to protect yourself is to verify your customer's address.

When you process a card transaction, you will enter your customer's billing address. The results of the address verification will appear after the transaction is submitted.

The transaction will still be completed but if you are uncomfortable with the results, you may immediately void the transaction, contact your customer to get the correct address, and re-submit the transaction.

A list of these codes, known as the Address Verification Service or AVS, can be found on the ProPay website.