Fraud Alerts

Overview

It is important to monitor Fraud Alerts and understand what the impact is to your business. In this section we will guide you through how to access your fraud data in the Hub.

What is a Fraud Alert?

A Fraud Alert occurs when a customer contacts their issuing bank to notify them that there is an unrecognised transaction on their account. The issuer raises what is called a TC40 (Visa) or SAFE (Mastercard) record and notifies the acquiring bank. We then receive the record directly from the acquiring bank and notify the merchant by uploading the data into the Hub.

Fraud Monitoring Programs

Card schemes (like Visa and Mastercard) monitor your reported fraud activity month by month, comparing it to your sales. If your levels of fraud exceed what is deemed acceptable by the scheme, you may be placed on their monitoring program. As part of this program, you can incur monthly fines until your fraud levels are reduced.


Fraud Alerts report

The Fraud report will allow you to view all instances of fraudulent activity on your account. This allows you to update your own systems and potentially remove these customers from future processing.

We recommend monitoring this report regularly as if a transaction is flagged as fraudulent, there is an increased chance of a dispute being raised as a result.

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Note

To attempt to stop a dispute being raised, you have the opportunity to process a refund. To view our disputes guide, click here.

You can process a refund through the Hub or API, or if you wish to refund all Fraud Alerts, Acquired.com can process these refunds on your behalf. For further information on this solution, please contact our support team.

Report structure

In this report, the information is presented in two ways:

  • Monthly summarised table
  • Card scheme

We display the summarised table by the number of fraud alerts, the ratio against your card processing volume and the value amount relating to these alerts.

To view the transactions and customers that the fraud alerts to, click into the Fraud Number and the Fraud Report Details will open. From this section you can perform a number of actions, including, view the transaction and customer information, process a refund or add to the blocklist.

Report parameters

ParameterDescription
MIDThe unique ID assigned by Acquired.com for the MID.
Company NameThe company name.
Transaction_idThe unique reference assigned by Acquired.com for the transaction.
ARNThe Acquirer Reference Number (ARN) is the unique reference that is used within the banking network to identify the transaction.
RRNThe Retrieval Request Number (RRN) is the reference number passed to Acquired.com from the issuing bank when the acquirer/issuer requests further information about the transaction.
AmountThe transaction amount that was collected.
Customer_idUnique reference assigned by Acquired.com for the customer when it is created.
Card TypeThe scheme that the card belongs to (Visa/Mastercard/AMEX).
Card ExpThe expiry date listed on the card.
Card NumberThe last 4 digits of the card number.
Cardholder NameCardholder's name as provided within the transaction request.
Transaction DateThe date the transaction was originally processed.
Fraud DateThe date Acquired.com received the Fraud alert.
StatusThe status of the Fraud Alert (see statuses below).

See below the list of Fraud statuses:

  • No Action: no action has been taken yet.
  • Expired: the Fraud Alert can no longer be refunded.
  • Refunded: the Fraud Alert has been refunded.