How does Kovena help reduce the amount of chargebacks I incur?

Chargebacks are initiated by the cardholder and can be a big problem for accommodations. The main reasons for chargebacks are;

• The customer doesn’t recognize the charge on their account.
• The customer wants to avoid paying for accommodation or service because they weren’t satisfied with the service provided.
• The customer has forgotten that they made a particular purchase, e.g. room service
• There may be another person they know who made the purchase with their card and they don’t recognize the transaction.
• The customer doesn’t agree with paying for the cancellation/no show fee.
• Fraudulent use of the card – stolen cards or testing card limits.

The Kovena system used by PMS'S tackles these issues in various ways.

I didn’t stay there (honest mistake). The main reason cardholders don’t recognize a charge on their account or forget they made the purchase is because the name of the merchant is not the same as the name of the service provider. For example, they may have stayed at Mango Resort, however on their statement it shows as Roberts Holdings - which we’ll assume owns Mango Resort. Kovena ensures that the actual name of the service provider - also known as the descriptor - is included in the information passed to the cardholder so this issue doesn’t come up. Around 70% of all chargebacks are honest mistakes, so getting this right makes a big difference.

I didn’t stay there / I didn’t purchase that (deliberate attempt to avoid Payment). Some travelers will try and claim back money on their credit card by claiming they didn’t stay at the property - claiming they cancelled - or that they checked out early or didn’t use the spa or restaurant shown on the bill etc. This is not something Kovena can manage directly, although travelers doing this are flagged in the system and if they book subsequently, Kovena will monitor their activities closely. The best way to avoid this problem is for the accommodation to a) take an imprint of the card when the guest checks in - not a photocopy =--) and to have the guest sign their bill at the time of checkout, acknowledging and accepting the charges made.

Fraudulent use of a card. Kovena uses a number of techniques to minimize this happening, for example Kovena uses very secure PCI DSS encryption called tokenisation of card data, plus PSD2 Compliance, and the 3-D Secure protocol. These three layers of protection have been shown to reduce card fraud by up to 70%.

Poor service or property not providing facilities promoted. This is a service provider issue and can be a major problem with some accommodations - notably those with very poor traveler feedback. Kovena will monitor traveler feedback on OTAs, TripAdvisor, and Google to determine whether to impose special conditions on the provider or, in some cases, terminate the merchant account facility if an unusually large number of chargebacks come from this issue.