Friendly fraud

Also called first-party fraud, chargeback fraud

A chargeback filed by the real cardholder, or someone in their household, for a purchase they made or allowed, such as a child spending on a parent's card.

In friendly fraud, the cardholder or a family member made or allowed the purchase and later asked the bank to reverse it. In games, common cases are a child spending on a parent’s card and “item not received” claims on virtual goods.

No neutral industry figure exists. Chargeflow, a chargeback-management vendor, says 79% of gaming chargebacks are friendly fraud (Chargeflow). Chargebacks911, another vendor, puts it at 43.8% of chargebacks across the merchants it surveyed (Chargebacks911). Treat both as vendor claims.

Friendly fraud counts toward card-network ratios like any other dispute, and Stripe notes that monitoring programs “don’t consider dispute outcomes” (Stripe). Banning the player’s account in response carries its own risk in the US. The FTC’s 2022 order against Epic Games bars Epic from blocking account access for customers who dispute unauthorized charges.

The evidence to keep ties each payment ID to the item delivered, a timestamp and consumption logs. See chargebacks and fraud.