American Express, Ethoca Team To Solve Disputes Between Merchants, Cardholders

American Express, the payments company, and Ethoca, a provider of collaboration-based technology solutions for merchants and card issuers, announced on Monday (Oct. 15) a collaboration to resolve issues quicker.

In a press release, the companies said the partnership is aimed at helping American Express merchants and card members in the U.S. to more quickly resolve disputes related to card purchases. American Express has deployed the Ethoca Eliminator solution in what it said is its latest step to help merchants reduce time and costs spent handling disputes.

“American Express is committed to providing merchants and card members a simple process for resolving disputes,” said Priscilla Kam, senior vice president of global strategy and capabilities for American Express’ Global Merchant & Network Services Group. “Ethoca’s platforms can help prevent cardmember disputes before they happen, helping merchants save time and costs associated with disputes and chargebacks.”

According to the companies, by using Ethoca Eliminator, American Express can help prevent disputes for U.S. merchants by providing more detailed transaction information in real time to cardmembers who call customer service because they do not recognize a charge on their account. The Ethoca Eliminator platform retrieves transaction information from merchants who are using the tool, enabling customer service reps at American Express to relay the information to the cardmember while on the phone.

American Express also plans to offer this capability online in the first quarter of 2019, so cardmembers can view additional details about their charges made at participating merchants. The company said it has made several updates to its disputes and chargeback policies to help its merchants, including attempting to solve disputes before getting the merchants involved, providing more ways for merchants to appeal chargebacks with online transactions and reducing the number of times merchants can receive a dispute for the same charge.

“Ethoca is delighted to be working with American Express to simplify the dispute process for its merchants and cardmembers,” said Keith Briscoe, chief marketing and product officer for Ethoca. “Our suite of collaboration-based solutions is focused increasingly on preventing unnecessary disputes before they ever disrupt a customer purchase journey – ultimately helping to ensure a better experience for all parties in the ecosystem.”