What is a Credit Card Retrieval Request?

Once you receive a retrieval request, the bank tries to get information about a particular transaction. Maybe the customer can’t find the charge on their statement, or maybe they just want to verify that they actually authorized the payment. In either case, the bank needs to hear your side of the story before they make any decisions about the money.

The upside of retrieval requests is that they actually give you a chance to sort out any uncertainty before it turns into a chargeback. You could skip the whole dispute process altogether by sending the right proof fast enough.

Some merchants call these “soft chargebacks” but that name is actually pretty misleading. A retrieval request isn’t a penalty at all – it’s more like an opportunity to show that everything was legitimate. You get to show them that the transaction was valid before any funds get reversed from your account.

The best strategy is to respond right away and give the bank what they want to see from you. Most of the retrieval requests that get handled well never turn into chargebacks and that’s why it pays to treat these requests like they matter from the start.

How It Works

A retrieval request happens when a cardholder picks up the phone to call their bank about some transaction that they swear they never made. Sometimes it’s a charge from 3 months back that they just can’t remember – maybe they bought something online late at night and forgot about it. When this happens, the bank knows that they need to dig deeper to help their customer sort out what’s going on, so they reach out through the card network to get the actual transaction info from you.

The process itself is pretty easy to follow when you get a handle on the chain of communication. The cardholder’s bank sends their request through whichever network originally processed that payment – Visa, Mastercard or another card company, and that request then travels to your merchant bank, who forwards the whole thing directly to you. The entire process usually takes just a few days from start to finish. But once that request lands in your inbox, the countdown begins for your response.

You’ll receive an electronic notification that comes with a certain reason code, and each card brand uses their own system for these codes, though they all cover similar territory. Code 30 might mean that the cardholder should have received a copy of their receipt, while Code 41 could mean they want to see proof that you actually delivered whatever they purchased. Your payment processor will usually translate these codes for you and explain which documents you’ll have to send in.

The tough part about these requests is that they usually show up weeks or months after the original sale took place. You might have to dig up records from a transaction that happened last quarter and it’s why it helps to keep your receipts and invoices well-organized from the start.

Most merchants get about 10 business days to respond once that request arrives. Miss that deadline and you could have an automatic chargeback – even if the original transaction was legitimate and above board.

How it Affects Chargeback Prevention

Responding to these can usually stop a customer dispute before it escalates into a full chargeback. That saves you from the chargeback fees and the damage to your merchant account standing.

Retrieval requests let you catch problems early before they get worse. They alert you when a customer feels confused about a charge on their statement before they file an official dispute with their bank. Most customers will remember the purchase and drop the whole issue when you take care of them right away and give them detailed transaction info. This keeps your chargeback rationice and low and helps you steer clear of those expensive monitoring programs that card networks love to put on merchants who rack up a lot of disputes.

Chargebacks hit you from multiple angles at once. You lose the product and the revenue and you’re also paying a chargeback fee on top of everything else. Your payment processor might even raise your rates or terminate your account if your chargeback ratio climbs too high.

On top of the damage control, retrieval requests also help you see patterns that keep coming up in your business operations that might cause some uncertainty. Maybe your billing descriptor doesn’t make sense to customers, or maybe your customer service team could use some extra training. Track and analyze these over time and you can figure out and fix the problems before they affect your entire customer base.

Example Scenarios

You’ll have to keep detailed records when these pop up. When you have all of that paperwork ready, you can send it straight to the bank before their response deadline hits. The customer will usually remember the purchase once they see the details and the whole issue just disappears on its own. No chargeback drama is needed.

Restaurant owners run into a slightly different challenge with these requests. A retrieval request might come in about a dinner from last month where the customer thinks that the tip amount looks wrong. They’re convinced that they only left a 15% tip. But the charge on their statement shows 25% instead. You can pull up that signed receipt from your files, and right there in black and white is the customer’s own handwriting that shows what they wrote. You send a copy of that receipt to the bank and then the whole matter usually resolves itself pretty fast.

Service businesses run into cancellation disputes all of the time, and these can be a bit tougher to work through. A customer might book your photography services for their wedding and then cancel just 2 weeks before the big day. Your contract says that deposits become non-refundable after 30 days and it’s pretty standard in the industry. When that retrieval request arrives, you can send them the signed service agreement along with the email correspondence about your cancellation policy. The bank can see that you followed your stated terms and that the retrieval request usually closes without any more escalation.

Requirements and Timeframes

Once you get a retrieval request, the clock starts to tick right away. Most card networks will give you between 10 and 20 days to get back to them with your response. What lots of merchants miss though is that your deadline is way shorter compared to what you see written on the paperwork.

The whole process takes time. It has to make its way from the cardholder’s bank all the way through to your payment processor, and then finally over to you. This communication can really burn through a few days before it even hits your desk. Add in a weekend or a holiday, and you’re looking at even less time to work with.

Different card networks are going to want very different documents from you as well. Visa usually wants to see a receipt along with proof that the item was actually delivered. Mastercard could ask for those same documents. But they’ll also want to see a copy of your return policy. American Express tends to dig deeper and ask for way more detail about the particular transaction. The type of business you’re running matters too, because what they want changes depending on what you’re actually selling. Digital products and downloads need a different type of proof than the physical items that get shipped out.

Miss that deadline and you lose automatically. The bank will basically believe that you don’t have the right records, and they’ll hold you responsible for any chargeback that comes after. You won’t get another chance to fight it later either – it’s why so many businesses put together automated systems that deal with them as they come in. Other businesses create entire teams whose job it is to monitor for them and respond fast. Whatever route you pick, you’ll need to move fast and give them everything they’re asking for on the first try.