Card scheme's monitoring program
Card schemes (like Visa and Mastercard) monitor your monthly dispute activity in relation to your sales volume. If the number of chargebacks you receive exceeds the levels deemed acceptable by the scheme, you may be placed on their monitoring program.
Once you’re on a program, the scheme can charge you monthly fines and additional fees, until you reduce the dispute activity back down to acceptable levels. We will notify you if you are at risk of or have been enrolled in such a program and collaborate with you in reducing your disputes.
In this document, we list Visa and Mastercard's monitoring programs to enhance your understanding of these programs.
Visa monitoring program
The Visa Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP) and The Visa Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP) are merchant-level dispute monitoring programs that are used for the following purposes:
- Identify merchants with excessive levels of disputes.
- Implement corrective plans to protect the integrity of the payment system.
The following table shows the thresholds of both monitoring programs:
Monitoring program | Monitoring metrics | Threshold |
VDMP (Visa Dispute Monitoring Program) | Both: 1. CB ratio = CB count received on the reported month/payment count of the reported month 2. CB count | Early Warning, if both: 1. CB ratio: 0.65% |
Standard, if both: | ||
Excessive, if both: | ||
VFMP (Visa Fraud Monitoring Program) | Both: 1. Fraud Rate = fraud amount received on reported month/payment amount of reported month 2. Fraud amount | Early Warning, if both: 1. Fraud Rate: 0.65% |
Standard, if both: | ||
Excessive, if both: | ||
VFMP -3DS (US only) | Both: 1. Fraud Rate = fraud amount received on reported month/payment amount of reported month 2. Fraud amount | Early Warning, if both:
Standard, if both: |
Mastercard monitoring program
Mastercard uses the Acquirer Chargeback Monitoring Program (ACMP) to monitor merchants that receive an excessive number of chargebacks monthly. Mastercard's ACMP consists of two programs, the Excessive Chargeback Program (ECP) and the Excessive Fraud Merchant (EFM) program.
The following table shows the thresholds of both monitoring programs:
Monitoring program | Monitoring metrics | Threshold |
ECP (Excessive Chargeback Program) | Both: 1. CTR = CB count received on the reported month/payment count of the preceding month 2. CB count | Chargeback-Monitored Merchant (CMM), if both: |
Excessive Chargeback Merchant (ECM), if both: 1. CTR: 1.5%-2.99% 2. CB count: 100-299 | ||
High Excessive Chargeback Merchant (HECM), if both: 1. CTR: 3% 2. CB count: 300 | ||
EFM (Excessive Fraud Merchant Compliance Program) | - | If all the following conditions are met:
|