Has anyone else been experiencing an increase in payment disputes? How do we prevent this?

[dcutting]

We’ve been running Square for Restaurants for about a year now. Since 2022 has started, we have been getting frequent payment disputes at our restaurant that for whatever reason aren’t being resolved in our favor. We’ve been seeing the most payment disputes for e-Gift Card purchases and Online Orders claiming customers had no knowledge of the charges — rather than not receiving the goods. 

We have a refund policy in place at our restaurant, but it seems the banks don’t care. 

How do other restaurants prevent this? What more can we do? We don’t want to turn off e-Gift Cards and Online Ordering services since they are utilized heavily by out customers.

[PartyManiaMD]

I'm sorry you're seeing an increase in payment disputes. Soon hopefully the e-gift card disputes will no longer be an issue as they're increasing security and identification. https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Product-Updates/New-Security-features-for-eGift-Cards/ba-p/370400

Unfortunately online sales are ripe for abuse and the only way you can really crack down on payment disputes is to request ID when in doubt. If the online order doesn't match the name of the person picking it up that is a HUGE red flag and I'd take a picture of their ID and save camera footage just in case.

I've only had a handful of disputes over the past 11 years and my Fear of missing out caused me to ignore the warning signs when the transactions were abnormally large.

I hate to say if if your clientele is heavily utilizing e-gift cards that's not necessarily a good thing and if you're getting a lot of charge backs IMO it's better to turn off online ordering until you or square can implement secondary checks to ensure your clientele is actually your clientele.

Best of luck! I wish the whole system was set up with more security and eliminating chargebacks, unfortunately we are only Square's partner, the other half likes to play loose and reckless(the card issuers).