According to Visa, charges originating outside the United States are especially problematic. Web transactions account for just 2 percent of Visa's international business, yet those transactions account for almost 50 percent of the total number of disputed charges and fraud. Visa would not release its fraud and dispute figure for charges originating inside the US, but said it was much lower. It's important to note that fraud and disputed charges are separate problems. Visa would not break out the numbers, but it said that the rate of disputed charges was much higher than the rate of fraud.
Many disputes stem from problems with the merchant's own service.
Lots of neophyte Web merchants are poorly equipped to fulfill orders in a timely fashion, don't adequately describe the products for sale on the site, and don't have good customer service support to field questions. The big sites, like Amazon, have fewer problems because they have the financial and technical resources to set up sophisticated antifraud measures. Vause says smaller retailers face more risk. They need to become educated through their processor. Fraudulent transactions account for about 10 percent of Net retailers' total sales.