Food and Beverage Industry Dispute Resources

[Helen]

Hi Seller Community,

Card not present payments are on the rise as the Food and Beverage industry continues the shift from in person to remote payments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many sellers are confronted with unexpected challenges as a result of these new sales channels, most notably the increased prevalence of disputed payments, and the absence of resources to properly protect themselves from these disputes.

We’ve compiled a list of resources to help you identify potential fraud, and respond to disputes if they do occur. 

How to identify fraud and prevent disputes

Best Practices

• Keep an eye out for orders well above your normal size or order pattern. Orders with a lot of the same item, and high-price items can be red flags.

• Use a service with the ability to aggregate customer information like customer profiles.

• If possible to do so safely, require signature on delivery.

 

Risk Manager

• Monitor the transactions report in Square Dashboard for Risk Evaluations. A risk evaluation shows Square’s determination of a transaction’s risk of becoming a fraud dispute, indicating whether a transaction’s risk level is moderate or high based on our models. 
• If you need to take more control over the orders you accept, Risk Manager is a tool that helps you spot and manage potential fraud from the online payments you process with Square. You can use Risk Manager to create rules in the Square Dashboard to trigger your own fraud alerts or to automatically decline suspicious payments. You can also put suspicious cards or email addresses on the Block List to prevent future payments from coming through. 

How to manage disputes

If you are not familiar with the dispute process, please take a look at this video for a complete overview. You can also learn more about the dispute process in Square’s Support Center.

Some fraud claims may be initiated when a buyer doesn’t remember the payment that was made. So to jog buyer’s memories, follow these guidelines to minimize disputes: 

• Make your business name recognizable by customizing your business name. Your business name will show up both on Square receipts and on the buyer’s bank statement. 
• Add your phone number, address, website, and social media pages to your receipts. This will help a customer reach out to you directly if something goes wrong with a sale, rather than immediately filing a dispute with their bank.
• Itemize receipt of the purchase which would require using Square’s item library. Click here for information about creating items.
• Have any information about the buyer handy. This includes: name, email, delivery address.

Effective evidence to provide when there is a dispute

For pick-up orders using card not present transactions, this evidence is helpful:

• Cardholder signature
• Copy of identification presented by the cardholder
• Details of identification presented by the cardholder

For delivery orders, any type of evidence supporting documentation that shows that the order was delivered is helpful:

• Photograph of completed delivery 
• Messages between cardholder and courier that proves the cardholder is in possession of the order
• A review of the order left by the cardholder that proves they received the order

I hope these best practices are helpful for you. You can learn more in our Support Centre article. Please let us know if you have any questions below.