Chargeback reason code lookup

The cardholder says they did not authorize this online purchase. This is the most common fraud code for e-commerce merchants.

A counterfeit chip card was used at a terminal that did not properly process the chip.

The issuer filed the dispute because your account is flagged in Visa's fraud monitoring program, not because of specific transaction evidence.

The cardholder says they paid but never received the goods or services.

The cardholder says they cancelled the subscription but were billed anyway.

The cardholder says what arrived was materially different from what was sold, or defective.

The cardholder says you promised a refund or credit and never issued it.

The cardholder says they cancelled the order before delivery or the service before it was rendered.

The cardholder says they did not authorize the transaction. Mastercard's primary card-absent fraud code.

Mastercard's umbrella consumer-dispute code: the cardholder claims non-receipt, a defective item, misrepresentation, or a billing-agreement problem.

The cardholder says the goods or services never arrived.

The cardholder says a subscription was billed after cancellation, or a digital-goods billing agreement was not honored.

The cardholder says they were charged twice, or the amount differs from what they agreed to.

The cardmember denies authorizing the charge. Amex's primary card-absent fraud code.

The cardmember says the goods or services were not received.

The cardmember says what arrived differs materially from what was described.

The cardholder denies authorizing a card-not-present transaction.

The cardholder says they never received what they paid for.

The cardholder says a lost or stolen card was used at your card-present terminal without their permission, and because the transaction was not processed as a chip transaction, fraud liability shifted from the issuer to you under the EMV rules.

The cardholder denies authorizing an in-person transaction, and the card was hand-keyed or otherwise processed without a proper card read, so the issuer is treating it as card-present fraud.

The issuer says you accepted a card that was listed on Visa's Card Recovery Bulletin, a pickup list for blocked cards, on a below-floor-limit transaction where you never requested authorization.

The issuer says you received a decline and pushed the transaction through anyway, whether by force-posting, resubmitting until something stuck, or capturing against a declined attempt.

The issuer says the transaction settled without valid authorization: none was requested, the approval had expired by the time you captured, or the captured amount exceeded what was approved.

The issuer says you submitted the transaction for clearing after Visa's presentment window closed, and the cardholder's account is now closed or otherwise cannot be charged.

The cardholder or issuer says the wrong transaction type was processed, most commonly a refund that was keyed as a sale, so money moved in the wrong direction.

The cardholder says the transaction was processed in a different currency than disclosed, or that dynamic currency conversion was applied without them actively choosing it.

The issuer says the account number that was charged does not match the account of the person who actually made the purchase, meaning the wrong cardholder was billed, usually through a manual keying error.

The cardholder says the amount that settled differs from what they agreed to: an altered tip, an unexpected add-on, or a final bill that does not match the receipt.

The cardholder says either the same purchase was charged twice (12.6.1, Duplicate Processing) or that they paid for it another way, in cash or on a different card, and were charged on their Visa card anyway (12.6.2, Paid by Other Means).

The issuer says the authorization was obtained with wrong or invalid data, such as an incorrect transaction date, merchant category code, transaction type, or country code, and that it would have declined the transaction if the data had been right.

The cardholder claims the goods you sold are counterfeit: not made by the brand they were represented as, or otherwise not genuine.

The cardholder says the terms or nature of what they bought were misrepresented at the time of purchase. This is the catch-all for trial offers that convert to subscriptions, free products with hidden charges, and sales copy that promised more than was delivered.

The issuer says the transaction was never properly authorized. That covers several stories under one code: you did not get an authorization approval, the authorization approval had expired before you settled, the account number does not exist on the issuer's file (absorbed from the retired code 4812), or you ran multiple authorizations that do not map to completed sales.

The cardholder says a counterfeit card was used, and the issuer says the loss is yours because your card-present terminal did not read the EMV chip. It was swiped on the magnetic stripe or fell back to stripe on a chip card, so liability shifted from the issuer to you.

The real cardholder says their card was lost, stolen, or never arrived, and someone else used it. The issuer is shifting the loss to you because the transaction went through without PIN verification, either on a terminal that could not support chip-and-PIN or by bypassing the PIN on a card that required one.

This one is not the cardholder complaining. It is Mastercard's own audit machinery: the issuer is clawing back the transaction because your merchant account was listed under a Mastercard fraud-monitoring program (GMAP or QMAP) or named in a Global Security Bulletin, which gives issuers a standing chargeback right against your sales.

A U.S.-only catch-all, used when both banks are in the United States. The cardholder has a complaint about the purchase that does not fit the standard dispute categories, says they tried to resolve it with you first and got nowhere, and is asserting the kind of claim they could raise under U.S. law.

A wrapper code for domestic disputes inside Mastercard's Europe region, used when an intra-country transaction is disputed under local-market rules that do not map to a standard reason code. The most common underlying story is processing error: a refund or credit the cardholder was owed posted to their account as a charge instead.

The cardholder says they did not participate in this card-present charge, and Amex has no record that the card was actually read by a terminal or imprinted. This usually fires when a merchant key-entered the card number by hand.

The cardholder says they did not make or authorize this mail order, phone order, or internet charge. This is the standard Amex fraud code for online transactions, distinct from F24 which alleges no valid cardmember authorization more broadly.

A counterfeit card was used at your terminal, and because the transaction was not processed as a chip read, the counterfeit fraud liability shifted from Amex to you.

A lost, stolen, or never-received card was used at your terminal, and because the transaction did not meet EMV processing requirements, the fraud liability shifted to you.

The cardholder says you owed them a refund, or agreed to issue one, and the credit never appeared on their Amex account.

The cardholder says they returned the merchandise or refused delivery, and you never issued the credit.

The cardholder says they canceled the order or service, but you billed them anyway or never reversed the charge.

The cardholder says they paid for these goods or services another way, by cash, check, or a different card, and the Amex charge double-bills them for the same purchase.

The cardholder says they were charged a no-show fee for a lodging reservation they properly canceled, or that a CARDeposit reservation was canceled but the deposit was kept.

The cardholder says they canceled a subscription or recurring charge before this billing, and you charged them anyway.

The cardholder says what they received was damaged in transit or defective, and you have not made it right.

Amex says the amount you settled was higher than the amount that was approved at authorization. The dispute is typically for the difference, not the whole charge.

Amex says you processed this charge without a valid authorization, typically because the card was declined, the card had expired, or no authorization was ever requested.

Amex says you submitted the charge after the authorization approval had already expired, so the approval you obtained no longer covered the transaction when it settled.

The cardholder says their card was used in person without their permission. The card was physically present at the point of sale, but they claim they never authorized or took part in the transaction.

The cardholder had a chip card and says a counterfeit copy of it was used at your terminal. Because the transaction was swiped or keyed instead of chip-read, Discover shifts the fraud loss to the merchant.

The cardholder had a PIN-preferring chip card and says an unauthorized transaction went through at your terminal without PIN verification, because the terminal allowed a PIN bypass or was not PIN-enabled.

The cardholder sees your charge on their statement and cannot connect it to anything they bought. They are not necessarily alleging fraud yet; they just do not recognize the transaction.

The cardholder says you charged a recurring payment after they canceled, or that they never agreed to recurring billing in the first place.

The cardholder agreed to one amount and was charged a different one. They believe the transaction amount was changed after they authorized it. Common with tips, hotel and rental incidentals, and post-order adjustments.

The cardholder says a transaction posted the wrong direction: they were charged when they should have been credited, or a refund was processed as a sale.

The cardholder says the same transaction hit their card twice: one purchase, two charges.

Discover requested your sales records for a disputed transaction and what came back could not be read. The chargeback posts because the documentation was illegible or incomplete, not because of the underlying purchase.

The cardholder received the goods or services but says they were defective, damaged, counterfeit, or materially different from what you sold them.

The cardholder returned merchandise or canceled the service, expected a refund under your policy or a promise you made, and no credit ever appeared on their account.

The issuer contacted your acquirer about an old transaction, usually a fraud claim surfacing after the normal dispute window closed, and asked whether the merchant side would accept liability in good faith. This chargeback posts only after that acceptance.