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Chargebacks are quietly raising prices for everyone, Chargebacks911 study finds

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 — 16:06:54 (UTC)

Chargebacks are quietly raising prices for everyone, Chargebacks911 study finds

38% of merchants across US, UK and global markets say chargeback-related costs are now influencing the prices of their goods and services, up from 32.5% in the previous report

On average, merchants lose more than four dollars for every dollar disputed once fees, lost inventory, prevention costs and operational overhead are accounted for

Nearly 62% of merchants say dispute volumes have increased over the past three years, while 73.7% of those observed an increase in friendly fraud TAMPA, Fla. — Consumers across global markets are paying more for goods and services in part because of a cost most of them have never heard of, according to new research from Chargebacks911, a global leader in dispute resolution and chargeback management. Nearly four in ten merchants now say that the costs associated with payment disputes and chargeback fraud are influencing the prices they charge customers.

The finding reframes a problem that has long been treated as a payments industry concern into something with much broader economic consequences. Chargeback abuse does not disappear when merchants absorb it; increasingly, it gets priced in.

"Every fraudulent dispute creates costs that go well beyond the original transaction," said Monica Eaton, Founder and CEO of Chargebacks911. "When enough of those costs accumulate, businesses have little choice but to recover them somewhere else. Increasingly, that means higher prices that are paid by the honest majority of customers who had nothing to do with the problem."

The 2026 Chargeback Field Report, built on proprietary survey data from merchants across the U.S., UK and global markets, finds that the financial impact of a single chargeback extends far beyond the value of the original transaction. Once chargeback fees, lost inventory, fraud prevention expenses and the operational cost of managing disputes are factored in, merchants lose on average more than four dollars for every dollar disputed.

Nearly 62% of respondents say dispute volumes have increased over the past three years, with the rise driven in part by the growing ease with which consumers can initiate a chargeback with their issuing bank. In many markets, cardholders can now file a dispute with a single tap on their banking app, often encountering less friction than the original checkout process.

The compounding effect of rising chargeback volumes and multiplying costs per dispute is beginning to show up in pricing decisions across a range of sectors and geographies. With 38% of merchants reportedly passing chargeback costs to consumers—up from 32.5% since the previous report—suggests the trend is accelerating rather than stabilizing.

Alongside formal chargebacks, a second and related cost pressure is building. Refund abuse, where customers submit return requests that fall outside merchant policies, does not involve the card network dispute process but creates significant financial strain nonetheless.

On average, merchants estimate that abusive refund requests account for 27.1% of all returns. Nearly one-third report that most of their returns involve some form of abuse. Among respondents, 62% describe refund abuse as a moderate or significant concern.

The dynamic places merchants in a difficult position. Businesses that tighten return policies to reduce refund abuse risk driving customers toward formal chargebacks instead. Those that maintain lenient policies in order to reduce dispute volumes face rising refund losses. However, neither approach resolves the underlying consumer behavior.

"Refund abuse and chargeback fraud are two sides of the same problem," said Eaton. "When merchants make returns easier to reduce formal disputes, that same simplicity gets exploited. Managing both without penalizing the vast majority of customers who have entirely legitimate reasons to return something requires a level of visibility and insight that most businesses currently cannot generate independently."

The research suggests that the impact of dispute abuse on consumer pricing is likely to intensify as eCommerce volumes grow and alternative payment methods introduce new complexity. Merchants operating across multiple international markets, those accepting installment payment options and businesses in high-risk verticals face compounding exposure that makes cost absorption increasingly difficult to sustain.

Most merchants lack the internal tools to fully understand where dispute costs originate or how they accumulate across the transaction lifecycle, a gap that makes early intervention effectively impossible without specialist support. Chargebacks911's Unified Dispute Management System (UDMS) uses AI and machine learning to give merchants that visibility, identifying dispute cost drivers in real time and enabling earlier, more targeted action before losses reach the point where pricing becomes the only lever available. ResolveLab supports that process with continuous performance measurement, helping merchants track the full cost of dispute activity rather than managing individual cases in isolation.

"The merchants managing this most effectively treat dispute costs as a strategic business issue to overcome," said Eaton. "Continuous measurement and real-time visibility into where losses are occurring is what allows businesses to act before costs accumulate to the point where passing them to customers feels like the only option. That is the outcome nobody wants, least of all honest consumers."

The complete 2026 Chargeback Field Report is available at chargebacks911.com/chargeback-field-report.

For more information about Chargebacks911 or its chargeback prevention and remediation solutions, visit www.chargebacks911.com or email info@chargebacks911.com.

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About Chargebacks911 Founded in 2011, Chargebacks911 is the first global company fully dedicated to remediating chargebacks at scale. As industry-leading innovators, Chargebacks911 is credited with developing the most effective solutions for helping businesses manage disputes, remain compliant, and reduce loss in various industries and sectors within the payments space. 

Chargebacks911 provides comprehensive and highly-scalable platform solutions for issuers, acquirers, and their customers - managing chargebacks, related services and post transaction workflows. The company helps decrease the negative impact of chargebacks and provides real-time API connectivity, configurable white-labelled interfaces, and actionable insights, thereby improving revenue retention using data-driven technology to help ensure sustainable growth for every member of the payment channel.     Chargebacks911’s unparalleled category experience and patented Intelligence Source Detection (ISD™) technology help identify the true source of chargebacks, automatically remediates fraudulently filed disputes, safeguards reputations, monitors feedback 24/7 and provides insight to proactively prevent future fraud. www.chargebacks911.com

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Source: Company press release.

Categories: Reports and research