Founded in 2011 in Florida, USA, by Monica Eaton-Cardone and Gary Cardone, Chargebacks911 is now celebrating its 10-year anniversary. The company has since successfully protected more than 10 billion online transactions and has recovered over $1 billion in falsely disputed and/or stolen revenue.
The global leader in chargeback management, remediation and dispute resolution now has over 400 fintech professionals working across corporate offices in North America, Europe and Asia for some 45,000 active merchants in 87 countries across 27 verticals. It also recently launched a new dispute management brand for financial institutions, Fi911, to empower FIs with the most sophisticated dispute management technology in the world. Today, it serves some of the world’s largest financial institutions.
“We were the first chargeback company in North America and Europe – we can add APAC to that list this year as well,” said Co-Founder and COO, Monica Eaton-Cardone. “Originally when we first started, it was assumed that chargebacks were an unavoidable cost of doing business. Instead of trying to combat them, merchants would just accept them – there was a need for serious, transformative change.
“We’ve been working hard to alter this perception over the past decade. It’s now widely acknowledged how systemically unfair the chargeback process can be to sellers and many want to join our campaign for change.”
Gary Cardone, CEO of Chargebacks911, added, “Right now, we’re in a moment of history where the world is digitising at a staggering rate, causing an upwards trajectory of global ecommerce which is expected to grow 16.5% from 2020 to $2641.1 billion in 2021.
“Chargebacks911 will continue to innovate and expand our technology and solutions, to support the growing, multi-acquired, multi-currency and multi-lingual merchants and FIs who are raring to take advantage of the expanding global opportunities.”
Discussing her proudest moments, Eaton-Cardone explained, “Of all our accomplishments over the past 10 years, I’m most proud of how we’ve elevated awareness and helped inspire change. This was our first goal, and arguably our largest initial barrier to success. It is also something that’s impossible to achieve without genuine teamwork, dedication, and perseverance.”
As the company has grown, so too has its desire to give back and champion many causes – both in and out of the industry. It has helped over 200 students graduate the Paid for Grades programme by providing learning modules in key subjects, support through tutors and cash rewards upon graduation.
Eaton-Cardone is a long-time advocate of overhauling chargeback processes and making other substantial changes to legacy infrastructure and policies. In a bid to improve merchant rights and equip them with the knowledge to effectively manage chargebacks, she authored the book, Chargebacks for Dummies, and then offered it free to the public. To help educate the consumer sector, she partnered with Citibank, American Express and Bank of America, spear-heading the ConsumerAction initiative which provides free courses and guides to banks and their cardholders – teaching them when and how to correctly use the chargeback process, and protect themselves from unauthorised charges.
This was followed by Chargebacks911’s thousands of pages of free content, infographics, eBooks and advice on its website, and more recently the launch of its educational seminars series, Chargeback University, in London, Toronto, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“Initially, raising awareness of the issue was an uphill battle, but over the past few years there’s been a seismic shift in public opinion,” said Eaton-Cardone. “Instead of automatically blaming the sellers, there is now an acceptance that fraud can go both ways in the merchant-consumer relationship.
“Equally, we’re becoming increasingly cognisant of the link between consumer fraud and price-inflation – when the cost of fraud rises for the merchant, eventually it’s going to result in higher prices for the consumer. That’s why chargeback fraud is like a multibillion-dollar hidden tax on online products.”
Eaton-Cardone predicts that the next 10 years will see a decade of ecommerce dominance, creating a further need for companies like Chargebacks911.
She concluded, “There is big change coming over the next decade – the drastic increase in digital payments and chargebacks we’ve seen from COVID-19 has just been a taste of that – we are dealing with a structural and permanent shift in merchant-led technology and consumer behaviour. In order to reduce the billions that will be lost to invalid payment disputes, we must continue our push for industry-wide effective chargeback management systems, updated dispute rules based on modern (and future) commerce, and adequate support for both merchants and financial institutions.”
