Honest Shoppers Are Already Paying for Friendly Fraud
Friendly fraud is rising for 83% of enterprise merchants, according to the new Chargebacks911 2026 Chargeback Field Report. That headline is real, and it matters. But the number that should stop you is a quieter one: 38% of merchants now say chargeback costs shape the prices they charge, up from 32.5% a year earlier.
Fraud has crossed over from a loss line inside the business to the price on the shelf. Which means the bill is already being paid, and not by the person who disputed a transaction they knew was legitimate. It is paid by the shopper standing next to them who did nothing wrong.
Is Friendly Fraud Actually Getting Worse?
Yes. 83% of enterprise merchants reported friendly fraud increasing over three years, and 61% saw chargebacks overall rise in the same window (Chargebacks911, 2026). Nearly three-quarters of merchants, 74.4%, now call first-party fraud a moderate or significant concern.
The wider data agrees on the direction. LexisNexis figures cited in the same report put first-party fraud ahead of scams as a global fraud driver. And 27.1% of returns were attributed to refund abuse: roughly one parcel sent back in four is not a genuine change of mind. The threat moved after the sale, into the returns and delivery layer, and it is still climbing.
Who Really Pays When Chargebacks Rise?
The honest customer pays. In the 2026 report, 38% of merchants said chargeback costs already influence their pricing, so the loss is recovered from everyone who shops, not the person who caused it. Monica Eaton of Chargebacks911 put it plainly: honest customers "ultimately absorb part of that burden through higher prices."
That happens because a merchant who cannot tell a genuine claim from an abusive one has only two levers, and both land on the wrong people. The first is price: spread the cost of fraud across every basket and the good customer subsidises the bad one. The second is policy: tighter return windows, more required evidence, slower refunds, more claims pushed to manual review. That recovers some margin, but it taxes the patience of the exact customers a retailer most wants to keep.
Why Can't Merchants Just Catch the Abusers?
Because each merchant can only see its own disputes, and the abuse is designed to hide in that blind spot. Only 34% of merchants have a dedicated chargeback team, fewer than 30% use any outside help, and nearly a quarter juggle five or more separate tools just to investigate disputes (Chargebacks911, 2026).
The deeper problem is structural. A claimant who disputes one legitimate transaction at one retailer looks, to that retailer, like a single unlucky case. The same behaviour repeated across ten retailers is a pattern, but no single retailer can see nine-tenths of it. Everyone reads their own slice and concludes they have a manageable problem, while the person working the system reads all ten and knows they do not. We unpack that blind spot in The Serial Returner No Single Shop Can See.
What Would Actually Fix It?
Visibility across retailers, not better guessing inside one. When a repeat claimant who is invisible to any single retailer becomes visible across a network of them, the genuine customer and the serial abuser stop looking the same, and the blunt levers of price and policy are no longer the only options.
A retailer that can tell the two apart does not need to price defensively or tighten its policy for everyone. It can be fast and generous with the many and firm with the few, because it finally knows which is which. Faster refunds for good customers, confident declines for the ones gaming it, and fewer honest claims caught in the crossfire. That is the outcome we build toward, and we describe what it changes for a claims team in Fewer False Positives, Faster Claims.
The Real Question
The Chargebacks911 report is usually read as a story about rising fraud. It is really a story about who pays for it. With 38% of merchants now letting chargeback costs move their prices, the answer is already clear: the honest customer is paying, quietly, in every basket.
The question is not whether that cost exists. It is whether it has to keep landing on the people who did nothing wrong.
Source: Chargebacks911, 2026 Chargeback Field Report
Frequently asked questions
What is friendly fraud?
Friendly fraud, also called first-party fraud, is when a customer disputes a payment for goods they genuinely ordered and received. A 2026 Chargebacks911 study found it rising for 83% of enterprise merchants, and it now exceeds scams as a global fraud driver, per LexisNexis.
How does friendly fraud raise prices for honest shoppers?
When merchants cannot separate genuine claims from abusive ones, they recover losses by raising prices or tightening returns. In the 2026 Chargebacks911 report, 38% of merchants said chargeback costs already influence their pricing, so honest customers subsidise the abuse.
Why can't a single retailer stop repeat abusers?
A serial claimant keeps their activity small at each retailer, so it never rises above that retailer's normal noise. Only 34% of merchants even have a dedicated chargeback team, and none can see a claimant's behaviour across other retailers, so the pattern stays hidden.
What reduces false positives in refund fraud?
Cross-network visibility. When a claimant's behaviour is visible across many retailers instead of one, genuine customers and serial abusers stop looking identical, so a retailer can approve the many quickly and decline the few with confidence, cutting false positives.
Retail Cache · Fraud Intelligence
Retail Cache builds the shared fraud-intelligence network for retailers, carriers and 3PLs. We write about first-party, refund and delivery fraud, and how the industry can stop treating it as a cost of doing business.
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