Business Fortune
For most businesses, fraud is treated like an unavoidable cost of doing business, something to manage only after the damage has already been done. But for Fraud Deflect, that mindset was never good enough. After spending years on the front lines of fraud prevention and risk management, co-founders Scott E. Adams and Mari Perroni witnessed businesses lose revenue, customer trust, and valuable time to chargebacks that could have been prevented. What frustrated them even more was an industry that had grown comfortable reacting to fraud instead of eliminating its root causes. Merchants were left with expensive cleanups while providers focused on repairing the aftermath rather than preventing the crisis.
Driven by the belief that businesses deserved better, they founded Fraud Deflect with a clear purpose to stop fraud before it becomes a chargeback and give merchants a trusted partner invested in both protection and growth. Today, Fraud Deflect is helping merchants stop disputes before they become costly chargebacks, proving that the best way to fight fraud is to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Prevention Before Damage
The company’s philosophy centers on one critical idea: stopping fraud and disputes at the earliest possible stage. Fraud Deflect recognized a critical flaw in the payments industry. Rather than accepting this reactive approach, they began asking a different question: what if fraud could be detected before it happened? They believed that if merchants could identify the early signals indicating that a dispute was forming or a chargeback was about to be initiated, they could take action before any financial loss occurred.
Instead of focusing on managing fraud after the fact, Fraud Deflect is set out to help businesses anticipate and prevent it. Their goal was to give merchants the ability to spot warning signs early, intervene at the right moment, and protect revenue before it disappeared.
That insight ultimately led to the creation of Fraud Deflect, a company built on the belief that the best way to fight fraud is to stop it before it starts.
A Unified Approach to Prevention
At Fraud Deflect, every solution is designed with one objective in mind: stopping fraud and disputes at the earliest possible stage. Rather than treating fraud management as a series of disconnected processes, the company brings together data analysis, collaboration tools, dispute interception, and representment into a unified strategy focused on prevention.
Their platform evaluates every transaction in real time, continuously monitoring for signals that may indicate fraudulent activity or the early formation of a dispute. When potential risks are detected, merchants are alerted long before a formal dispute is officially logged. This early visibility gives businesses a valuable opportunity to investigate the issue, engage with customers, and resolve concerns before they escalate into costly chargebacks.
By preventing problems before they become official disputes, merchants can often save the sale, avoid unnecessary refunds, and maintain a stronger relationship with their payment processor. The combined impact of this proactive approach is substantial. Businesses experience lower fraud exposure, better protection of revenue, and significantly less time spent navigating the complex and resource-intensive process of dispute management. For Fraud Deflect, success lies not in responding faster to losses, but in helping merchants avoid them altogether.
The Intelligence Behind the Platform
At the heart of Fraud Deflect’s platform is its proprietary FD.ID technology, the intelligence engine that powers every decision and action across the system. More than just a monitoring tool, FD.ID evaluates each situation in real time and determines the most effective intervention at precisely the right moment. Whether that involves alerting a merchant, routing critical dispute data, or automating a response, the platform is designed to act before a problem escalates.
The company views FD.ID as the key differentiator that separates Fraud Deflect from traditional fraud and chargeback solutions. Many providers simply notify merchants after an issue has already occurred, forcing businesses into a costly cycle of reacting to losses. In those scenarios, merchants often pay for alerts, issue refunds, and may still face chargeback fees.
FD.ID was created to break that pattern. By identifying risks early and enabling proactive action, it helps merchants address potential disputes before they become financial liabilities. The result is a smarter, more preventative approach to fraud management, one that focuses on protecting revenue rather than merely informing businesses after the damage has already been done.
The Challenges Merchants Face
Fraud Deflect sees three major challenges shaping the modern eCommerce and subscription landscape. First, most merchants entered business to focus on their products, services, and customers, not to become experts in fraud prevention. Yet chargebacks and disputes have become costly distractions that demand significant time and attention.
The second challenge is the growing complexity of payment regulations and dispute programs. Processor agreements, card network rules, and compliance requirements are constantly evolving. A recent example is Visa’s Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP), which changed how fraud ratios are calculated across the acquiring ecosystem. Many merchants were caught off guard by the shift, despite the serious consequences non-compliance can bring.
The third and perhaps fastest-growing concern is friendly fraud. In these cases, legitimate customers make valid purchases and later dispute the transactions to recover their money. Because issuing banks often side with cardholders, merchants can face significant financial losses. For Fraud Deflect, this growing pattern represents one of the industry’s most pressing and costly challenges.
Smarter Dispute Management
Fraud Deflect leverages automation and real-time data intelligence to address one of the biggest weaknesses in the chargeback process: the lack of information available to issuing banks. When a customer initiates a chargeback request, banks often have little more than the cardholder’s account of the transaction, making it difficult to assess the full situation accurately.
The company’s FD.ID technology changes that dynamic. The moment a dispute signal is detected, it automatically delivers a comprehensive package of transaction data to the bank, processor, and relevant payment networks before any decision is made. This information can include order confirmations, purchase details, device intelligence, delivery verification, timestamps, and even images of delivered products when applicable.
By providing a complete view of the transaction upfront, Fraud Deflect helps financial institutions make more informed decisions. The impact is significant, with many disputes being cancelled before they progress further, saving merchants substantial revenue and reducing the burden of chargeback management.
Staying Ahead of Change
In an industry where regulations and compliance requirements are constantly evolving, Fraud Deflect helps merchants stay ahead rather than struggle to catch up. The company’s direct integration with card brand ecosystems provides valuable visibility into regulatory and policy developments while they are still being shaped, not after they have already taken effect.
This early access creates a significant strategic advantage for merchants. When Visa introduced its Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP), Fraud Deflect began educating clients and preparing them for the upcoming changes well in advance. By the time the new requirements were officially implemented, merchants using the platform were already compliant and ready to operate under the updated framework.
The result was a smooth transition without the confusion, disruptions, or last-minute adjustments that many businesses faced. For Fraud Deflect, proactive preparation is more than a service; it is a critical safeguard that helps merchants turn potentially disruptive policy changes into manageable business transitions.
Putting Merchants at the Center
The payments ecosystem is made up of issuers, processors, gateways, and card networks, each operating with its own priorities and objectives. While collaboration among these stakeholders is essential, it is often complicated by competing interests and fragmented communication. Fraud Deflect believes that one critical voice has traditionally been overlooked in these conversations: the merchant.
The company argues that merchants possess the most detailed understanding of a transaction. They have insight into customer behavior, purchase history, product details, and the overall context behind every sale. Yet, in many dispute scenarios, they are treated as passive participants rather than key contributors.
To address this imbalance, Fraud Deflect has built a model that places merchants at the center of the ecosystem. Instead of waiting for decisions to be made by others, merchants become active participants in the process. By making the merchant the anchor of collaboration, Fraud Deflect helps ensure that the most relevant transaction data informs decisions across the payments landscape.
The Future Lies in Collaboration
Fraud Deflect sees the future of chargeback prevention being driven by deeper collaboration across the payments ecosystem. For years, merchants, issuing banks, acquirers, and card networks operated in silos, each holding only a portion of the information needed to fully understand a transaction. As a result, critical insights were often missing when fraud and disputes occurred.
The company believes that model is rapidly changing. Greater integration and data sharing are creating a more connected infrastructure where stakeholders can work together to identify and prevent fraud more effectively. Fraud Deflect is positioning itself at the center of this evolution, helping bridge information gaps and enabling smarter decision-making across the ecosystem.
Looking ahead, the company expects card brands to encourage greater accountability from every participant in the payments chain. Through shared signals, shared responsibility, and a broader view of the entire customer journey, not just a single transaction, Fraud Deflect believes the industry can significantly reduce both criminal fraud and the growing challenge of friendly fraud.
Scott E. Adams | CEO
Scott E. Adams is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fraud Deflect, bringing more than 20 years of experience in fraud prevention, chargeback management, and risk mitigation. A recognized leader in the payments industry, he has led risk teams at major organizations including Riot Games and Epic Games, and previously built a merchant-focused compliance and chargeback prevention company that was acquired by Kount, an Equifax company, in 2020. In 2023, he co-founded Fraud Deflect to help merchants proactively prevent disputes through its innovative FD.ID Technology and DisputeGuard platform. Scott is a frequent international speaker, a longtime Board Director of PaymentsEd, and a respected author on fraud prevention and merchant compliance.
