Chargeback fraud is rising, Visa has consolidated its monitoring rules into a single program most merchants haven’t fully absorbed, and new industry data shows small businesses are the least confident group about it. The 2026 Chargeback Field Report from Chargebacks911 finds just 17.4% of small businesses describe themselves as “very informed” about the rules now governing their dispute rates.
What happened
Visa’s Acquirer Monitoring Program, or VAMP, replaced the company’s separate fraud and dispute monitoring programs in October 2025, rolling both into a single ratio that tracks a merchant’s combined disputes-plus-fraud count against total transactions, according to payments firm SignaPay. The program sets three risk tiers: a 0.5% combined ratio is flagged “above standard,” 0.9% is “excessive” and triggers fines, and 1.5% or higher is “high risk,” carrying escalating penalties and potential placement on Visa’s MATCH list, which can make it difficult to obtain merchant processing elsewhere.
For a merchant processing 1,000 transactions a month, SignaPay notes, just five disputed or fraudulent charges are enough to trigger the first warning threshold.
Layered on top of that, Chargebacks911’s 2026 Field Report — reported by Business Money — found 83.4% of enterprise merchants have seen “friendly fraud” (customers disputing legitimate charges) rise over the past three years, and 38% now say chargeback costs are directly influencing their pricing, up from 32.5% previously. Only about a third of merchants have a dedicated chargeback team, and fewer than 27% actively monitor Visa’s TC40 fraud records for VAMP compliance.
Why it matters
The gap between how fast the rules changed and how few businesses have caught up is the story here. “Merchants are being asked to manage a rapidly changing risk environment with limited staff, disconnected systems,” Chargebacks911 vice president David Pirtle said, describing a mismatch the data backs up: fewer than a quarter of merchants describe their teams as “very” up to date on card network rules, and small businesses report the lowest confidence of any segment measured.
That matters because VAMP penalties and MATCH-list placement aren’t abstract — they can restrict a business’s ability to accept card payments at all, and they’re triggered by ratios, not just raw dollar amounts, so a slow month with a handful of disputes can push a small merchant over a threshold that a larger business would barely notice.
What this means for small business owners
The response gap is where the real risk-return trade shows up: merchants who actively respond to disputes win 60-70% of the time, per SignaPay’s data, versus roughly 20% for those who don’t engage. That’s a bookkeeping and operations issue as much as a fraud one — it means someone needs to own dispute responses, not let them lapse by default.
Practical steps worth building into a monthly routine: make sure billing descriptors clearly match your business name (a top driver of “I didn’t recognize this charge” disputes), send itemized receipts automatically, use CVV/AVS checks and 3D Secure on card-not-present transactions, and keep documentation of service delivery on hand. Most importantly, check your VAMP ratio regularly rather than finding out about it from a penalty notice — that’s the step SignaPay’s report found fewer than 27% of merchants are actually doing.
“Friendly fraud has moved from being a back-office inconvenience to a material business risk,” said Chargebacks911 CEO Monica Eaton, commenting on the 2026 Field Report findings.
The bottom line
VAMP has been live for nearly a year, but small businesses are still the segment least aware of how it works — and the penalties it carries are ratio-based, meaning even a small business with a modest transaction volume can trip a threshold quickly. Treating dispute monitoring as a monthly bookkeeping task, not an afterthought, is the cheapest way to stay off Visa’s radar.
