topic Re: Chargebacks in Restaurant Operations

Chargebacks

pizzasarah — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 02:07:50 GMT

I have a delivery customer that has made several fraudulent chargebacks that we have lost, but I'm considering pressing charges since we know she got the food (it was 5 deliveries to the same house, and my drivers know her by name). Does anyone know if there is a chargeback fee from Toast? Our last processing company charged $15 per chargeback. I can't find one listed anywhere, but I need to figure out how much this woman is costing me before contacting authorities. Thanks so much!

Re: Chargebacks

au79teahouse — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 03:06:55 GMT

https://central.toasttab.com/s/article/Chargeback-FAQ

You can find more information in the article linked above. The fee is $15 each chargeback.

Re: Chargebacks

pizzasarah — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:15:52 GMT

Thank you for your help!

Re: Chargebacks

ashokr — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 20:54:07 GMT

I seriously doubt you can do after you have lost the case. I lost 2 since I wasn't watching my emails and lost the time to contest. After that there was one customer who ordered the wrong item and came back to change the item, we said yes we would remake that at our expense, but he wanted us to remake his entire order. When we said no, he went back and contested. I had the entire camera footage from security cam, but it was rejected and lost it. But I have won 2 chargebacks.

Toast does make it super simple to handle chargebacks, since they have digital receipts, its easy to handle them. But still its a fire and forget and hope for mercy!

Re: Chargebacks

megjk — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 19:53:13 GMT

We have had multiple chargebacks in the past 6 months and have lost them all. All were to go orders/ online. We are considering getting rid of ordering online, it just isn't secure enough. We have lost over 1,000 in the past 6 months. Is anyone else having major issues? Or what have they done to combat the issue?

Re: Chargebacks

au79teahouse — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:40:23 GMT

Make sure that the payment card used for the order matches the customer's ID. Print out a merchant copy for customers to keep sign and keep the signed receipt for at least 3 moths. Stay vigilant for suspicious emails and phone numbers—keeping a record of them will help you track potential fraud. Card-issuing banks often prioritize their own customers in disputes, so taking these precautions is essential to protect yourself. While this may seem inconvenient at first and, it is the most effective way to deter scammers and protect yourself from being taken advantage of.

Re: Chargebacks

ashokr — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 18:54:55 GMT

Are you contesting through the Toast backend? It usually gives you the digital signed receipts and you can write a formal letter explaining the repeat offence. Its always a shoot and hope to expect the best. If you don't respond they win all the time.

Re: Chargebacks

Pking — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:06:41 GMT

I agree! I also have an huge issue. I have called and suggested multiple times that they allow us to block customers by phone numbers, addresses etc! They don’t do much of anything. I will have the same customers that will order and dispute every single one and I lose them all. They will use different names, but it is always the same phone number. A nuisance

Re: Chargebacks

pizzasarah — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 19:24:16 GMT

That would be a great feature! We have several customers that have been banned throughout the years, and being able to block their number. The bad ones always keep ordering lol.

Re: Chargebacks

Keon — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 02:41:19 GMT

Same here. We just added online ordering. we havent even started to advertise it yet , however, within the last month we did $1,334.51 in online sales and $689.28 was lost in chargebacks plus -$15 for each chargeback by Toast. Thats 61% lost in chargebacks. We lost 100% of the 8 disputes. Very frustrating.

Re: Chargebacks

megjk — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 03:11:43 GMT

If they are online orders, you can't take the same precautions.

Re: Chargebacks

megjk — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 03:12:09 GMT

That would be a great solution

Re: Chargebacks

agliolio — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:36:19 GMT

We have lost EVERY chargeback since joining Toast more than a year ago, whether for takeout or dine-in. This is a major system flaw, that Toast stands to gain from, as we get charged for chargebacks as well 😕

Re: Chargebacks

ashokr — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:02:37 GMT

I'm not that bad yet. I have 4 Chargebacks, 2 won, 1 lost (Even though I should have won.. crazy bank), and 1 just contested today. A customer made direct delivery, instruction was "Meet a the door", but then never answers. Uber said their driver waited for 8 minutes and confirms 2 calls to customer. It was a big order too.. Close to $100. Let me see if I prevail !!!

Re: Chargebacks

ashokr — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 23:29:24 GMT

Ok the laws of average didn’t work for me. 2 wins and 2 losses. The recent one was bad. If the customer is irresponsible and didn’t answer the calls I have no idea what we can do. It’s so unfortunate that there is no due process and the customer bank is the judge. Irrespective of the evidence we give them. I had call logs from uber and id that isn’t enough feel helpless.

Re: Chargebacks

chrisMKE — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 13:07:14 GMT

Hello! I have brought this up to Toast on more than one occasion. They have not figured out a solution to this. We don't have as many issues as you do, but every dollar counts. The advice I was given is two things you can do. 1. don't take on line orders (that is a mistake as you my lose lots of orders) or 2. Don't take cards on line, but they have to pay when they get to the restaurant. The issue here, is that people may order and not come to pick up their food. Also, 3rd party may be an issue.

I ordered something to pick up at Home Depot, and I had to put in a security code to verify my payment.

Toast needs to figure this out. I am guessing it is costing all of us tons of money. It's really annoying.

Re: Chargebacks

Rob — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 17:10:49 GMT

Thanks for your reply. One thing I wanted to point out is that even when you enter a security code like you did with Home Depot, the process is the same; The customer bank is the entity that says whether the transaction is fraudulent or not. All the customer has to say is they were not the ones who entered the security code and their card was stolen, then this would be marked as fraudulent, and Home Depot would lose the chargeback as well.
Most companies understand this and raise their fees to account for this. Toast does not, we instead want our fees to be transparent. We don't think it's fair to raise everyone's rates to account for chargebacks and essentially charge you for chargebacks whether you have them or not, this is basically what everyone else does.

The best security option you have is using EMV, and even when using EMV, unfortunately, you can still lose the chargeback because it's up to the customer's bank, not Toast. The link below goes into more detail about this.

Get Help With Chargebacks

Re: Chargebacks

Jana — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:34:33 GMT

I was able to get Toast to find email addresses on the online orders placed and they were able to block the email addresses. That's not to say that they can't just create a new email but at least it is something. The previous platform we used for online ordering was able to block their IP address. They also started using a feature where the customer had to enter a code sent to them via text before they could complete their order. This way we at least had their correct phone number. (I hope Toast is listening:-) Something has to be done about chargebacks. It's obnoxious.

Re: Chargebacks

Jana — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:40:51 GMT

How would you propose using your emv for a delivery order?

Also, the process that the previous commenter mentioned regarding Home Depot would not prevent a chargeback. However, it may deter a fraudster because they couldn't be as anonymous. The previous provider did this and we saw chargebacks drop considerably. They also did not charge any more for this fee. We are seriously considering going back to this provider even if it we cannot integrate with Toast. Chargebacks are just way too costly and frustrating. Especially when you know that it is fraud.

Re: Chargebacks

Pking — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 18:22:38 GMT

We now have the ability to block customer emails so they can’t order online utilizing that same email. You do have to call in to

toast to have it done, but things are moving in the right direction!!