Apparent Chargeback Dispute Scam; has anyone else experienced this recently?

[beardance]

Last week I received two orders. Same last name, different addresses. One Miami and one NYC. My business does not ship orders on weekends, so luckily I hadn't shipped these orders yet before one of them files a dispute. Dispute said the customer "doesn't recognize the charge"

I tried texting both numbers. Neither of them work. So I email them asking if they indeed didn't recognize the charge or if they simply needed to cancel their order

They replied "I'm still waiting on my order" -- So I'm like, cool. This is definitely a scam and not a real customer.

I accept the dispute, cancel the order, and refund/cancel the other associated order.

I emailed both contacts and told them I'm unable to accept any orders from them. Juuuuust in case it's a real human who wants to justify their actions. (no response)

I used Risk Manager to block these contacts from our store as well as their IPs.

A few days go by... Then last night at 2 AM I receive 6(!!) new sketchy orders. Once again there is someinconsistent information across them but they all share the same red flags.

I straight up don't have the time to vet every single order/customer at the moment, so for now I've temporarily disabled the online store in the hopes they'll leave me alone and/or find a new target.

I'm primarily a brick-and-mortar business so online sales are whatever, but it's still very annoying.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this recently and if there's anything else we can do to block these fraudulent customers from placing more orders.

[Donnie-M]

@beardance From what I have seen this isn’t just you.  There are versions of this pattern. It’s not typical stolen card fraud, it’s more like coordinated chargeback activity mixed with bot orders.

The big signals are exactly what you described: mismatched info, immediate “unrecognized charge” disputes, then normal-sounding replies when you reach out. That’s usually scripted behavior and with ai, they don't even have to be there answering like a real human.

The mistake is canceling/refunding everything right away. That actually trains them that your store is low resistance, and they’ll keep coming back with more volume.  It is like saying hello to random numbers.

The advice I have seen involves some friction instead of trying to manually vet everything:
– Require full AVS + CVV match
– Limit late-night ordering or add basic checkout friction
– Don’t auto-refund once a dispute is filed, let it go through the process
– Block patterns (emails/names), not just IPs

Once the store stops being easy, they usually move on pretty quickly.  I haven't looked to see in risk manager what you can do on the list quickly, but this is what it sounds like to me.  Acting normal is actually putting a target on your back.