Glossary
Friendly fraud
Friendly fraud, which the schemes now call first-party misuse, is a chargeback filed by the genuine cardholder for a payment they, or someone in their household, actually made: they do not recognise the descriptor, they forgot a subscription, a child bought in a game, or they want the goods and the money. It is the largest share of disputes for digital goods, subscriptions and gaming, and it counts against the merchant's ratio exactly like a stolen card.
Why it grew
Issuers make disputing easy from the banking app and side with the cardholder; subscriptions and in-app purchases are easy to forget; descriptors are often unclear; and in card-not-present payments the merchant cannot prove presence. Visa’s and Mastercard’s rules now let a merchant answer with compelling evidence of the cardholder’s prior history with the merchant.
Fighting it
A recognisable descriptor with a contact; receipts and reminders before a renewal; clear refund terms; fast refunds when a payer asks, cheaper than a dispute; 3-D Secure where it shifts liability; and evidence kept per payment: device, address, login history, delivery proof, prior undisputed payments from the same card.
On the platform
Tranzify keeps every payment, its authentication result, the payer’s data the merchant sent and the related payments from the same card or payer in the journal, so the licensed client and its merchant can assemble the evidence for a representment and see which merchants and products attract first-party disputes.
Updated: 2026-11-08