Your Business Is in a Card Scheme Monitoring Program

• Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP): fraud reports plus disputes, divided by settled transactions. Since 1 April 2026 a merchant is excessive from 1.5% with at least 1,500 cases in a month in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. In parts of the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region, notably the Middle East, the line stays at 2.2%, with a lower minimum of 150 cases and USD 75,000; check with your acquirer which applies to you.
• Mastercard Excessive Chargeback Program: chargebacks this month divided by transactions last month. Excessive from 1.5% with at least 100 chargebacks, and high excessive from 3% with at least 300.

Visa charges the acquirer USD 8 for each dispute and fraud report counted while a merchant is above the excessive limit. Fees have applied since 1 October 2025, after a grace period for first-time identifications. Mastercard charges a monthly program fee that rises the longer a merchant stays in. Acquirers pass these fees on to you, and often add their own measures on top: a reserve, delayed settlement or lower limits.

• Mastercard, excessive: nothing in month one, then USD 1,000 a month in months two and three, 5,000 in months four to six, 25,000 in months seven to eleven, 50,000 in months twelve to eighteen and 100,000 after that.
• Mastercard, high excessive: the same steps at roughly double, from USD 1,000 in month two up to 200,000 a month, plus a charge for each chargeback above 300 from month four.

You leave a program when your ratio stays below the limit. Mastercard requires three consecutive months under it. At Visa, a first breach within a rolling twelve months normally comes with a three-month grace period before fees apply. The longer you stay above the limit, the higher the fees and the greater the risk that your acquirer closes the account, which can lead to a listing on Mastercard's MATCH list.

• Work out your ratio exactly the way each scheme does, and track it weekly.
• Find the cause: an unclear descriptor, slow delivery, renewals customers forgot, or real fraud.
• Refund quickly where a case is weak, before it becomes a dispute.
• Use pre-dispute alerts and automatic resolution: a dispute resolved before it is filed no longer counts towards Visa's ratio, although a fraud report the bank has already made still does.
• Tighten fraud rules and 3-D Secure on the segments where the losses come from.
• Send your acquirer a written plan with dates. It shows you are acting, and acquirers take that into account.

When a merchant enters a program, the acquirer has to show the card scheme what is being done about it. Visa expects acquirers to submit a remediation plan, and Mastercard can ask to review the merchant's plan. In practice, your acquirer will ask you for one, often within days and then updated monthly. A specific plan improves your position with the acquirer; a vague one makes a reserve or other restrictions more likely.

• A short description of the business, what you sell and how customers pay.
• The causes: which reason codes, products, markets or traffic sources drive the disputes and fraud.
• Each action you are taking, with a date: descriptor change, refund policy, delivery times, cancellation flow, fraud rules.
• The prevention tools in use: 3-D Secure, CVV and address checks, velocity limits, alerts.
• Your target ratio and the month you expect to be back under the limit, with weekly figures to back it up.

Industry reports say Mastercard will bring its excessive chargeback and excessive fraud programs together under a single Global Merchant Audit Program from 1 April 2027, adding new dispute tiers, with the excessive chargeback threshold stepping down from 1.5% to 0.9% by 2031. Merchants already in a program are reported to keep their month count. If you are close to the limit today, the margin will get smaller, so plan your reduction now.

Acquipayer is not a payment provider and cannot take you out of a card scheme program. If your current provider restricts or closes your account, your profile is matched with a provider that considers merchants with your history, so you can keep processing while you bring the ratio down. Final approval and terms are always the provider's decision.

• Add your business, volumes and chargeback figures once.
• We match you with a provider that accepts your profile.
• Your account is prepared so you can keep taking payments.