'Most small businesses fall victim to first-part fraud'

Nine out of 10 small businesses (93 per cent) have reported an increase in ‘first-party fraud’ over the last 12 months, states a recent report by Visa which is stepping up payment protections for small businesses.

According to Visa, up to 20 per cent card charge disputes experienced by businesses could be first party fraud. This means consumers are disputing purchases and claiming transactions for services or goods are fraudulent when they did in fact receive them.

Mandy Lamb, managing director of Visa UK and Ireland commented, “At Visa we are committed to tackling fraud to help everyone pay and be paid with confidence.

“Small businesses are the beating heart of both the UK economy and our local communities. We recognise their vital importance and that’s why we are constantly evolving our protective solutions. These new measures will help to ensure small businesses can conduct business safely and securely whilst maintaining the high level of customer protection through Visa’s Zero Liability Policy.

“Fraud, in all guises, is a persistent threat that undermines trust in our financial systems, impacting businesses, individuals and livelihoods. Everyone loses with fraud, which is why it’s everyone’s responsibility to tackle the problem head on, and why we’re doing all we can to support businesses impacted by the problem.”

The new framework introduced, Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 (CE3.0), gives businesses more ways to show a disputed charge is valid and authorized by the cardholder, providing merchants with an additional level of protection while not impacting the consumers that are making genuine claims.

These changes are an important part of Visa’s strategy to fight all types of fraud across its network and protect businesses. Meanwhile, over three quarters (78 per cent) of respondents said that they knew where to access advice and support when combatting first-party fraud. The most popular places to go for advice were bank (57 per cent), credit card provider (50 per cent) and consumer organisations such as Citizens Advice (48 per cent).