What This Program Actually Watches
A chargeback monitoring program is not primarily a fine schedule, it is a threshold system that determines whether a merchant keeps its account at all. Both card networks track a ratio of a merchant’s fraud and dispute reports against its total sales, and once a merchant crosses that ratio at sufficient volume, the account moves from routine processing into active review, fines, and, at the top tier, termination.
Why Only One Network’s Numbers Appear Below in Full
This page’s title names both Visa and Mastercard because both networks run a comparable program, and an agent working either network’s merchants needs to know that. Only Visa’s VAMP thresholds could be independently confirmed against a specific, dated source in this research pass. Mastercard’s program is real and named below, but its specific published percentages are not, and are flagged as unconfirmed rather than estimated.
The Numbers
Visa’s Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) flags a merchant as Merchant-Excessive at a combined fraud-and-dispute ratio of 1.5% in most regions, or 2.2% in the CEMEA region, provided the merchant also logs at least 1,500 combined TC40 fraud and TC15 dispute reports in a month.
On the acquirer side, VAMP sets an “Above Standard” tier from a 0.5% ratio up to just under 0.7%, and an “Excessive” tier at 0.7% or higher, using the same 1,500-report monthly minimum count.
The VAMP ratio is calculated as the combined count of fraud and dispute reports divided by the total count of sales transactions, a transaction-count ratio, not a dollar-value one.
VAMP enforcement, including fees and penalties for merchants and acquirers who cross these thresholds, began October 1, 2025, with the current threshold percentages effective as of April 2026.
Mastercard operates a comparably named program, commonly referred to in the industry as its Excessive Chargeback or Excessive Fraud Merchant program, but its own specific published thresholds could not be independently confirmed in this research pass and should be treated as unconfirmed rather than estimated.
A merchant terminated after crossing a network’s chargeback-monitoring threshold commonly also lands on the MATCH list (Terminated Merchant File), from which removal is not automatic for five years absent re-listing.
Clearly Payments, What Merchants Should Know About Being on a MATCH List
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Chargebacks911, Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP)
- Clearly Payments, What Merchants Should Know About Being on a MATCH List