Visa reminder on refund best practices

Visa recently published a reminder to all acquirers on their best practice for merchandise return authorization messages (refunds) in Europe. Visa recommends:

• Asking cardholders to provide their card details when they request a refund. This helps you avoid declines due to outdated account details by checking the card matches the one used for the original purchase
  
• Including the transaction identifier and information on whether the transaction used stored card details in the refund message. Visa may apply non-compliance fees where merchants don’t include these details. However, our platform will automatically provide this information when you make a refund using details from the original transaction
  

Refunding to alternative accounts

You can process the refund onto an alternative Visa account if the original card is no longer available or valid, or if the issuer declines the authorization request for the refund.

There are also circumstances where Visa allows you to offer an alternate form of credit (cash, cheque, in-store credit, prepaid card etc.) if you’re unable to process a refund to the original account or an alternative account because of one or more of the following conditions:

• The cardholder does not have a receipt or other proof of purchase from the original sale
• The refund is to the recipient of a gift (instead of the cardholder who made the original purchase)
• The original sale took place on a Visa prepaid card which the cardholder has since discarded
• The issuer declined the authorization request for the refund

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