DATA SOURCES · REVALIDATED AUGUST 2026

Facts & figures, live on the site.

Every figure below is paired with the source that reports it, its scope, and the year it covers. Toggle between the global and U.S. figure where both are reported — we never substitute one for the other.

TOGGLE: GLOBAL vs. U.S.

Five figures, side by side.

Global is shown by default. Click "U.S." to switch. Where a U.S.-scoped figure isn't in our source register for that exact metric, we say so rather than approximate one.

HEADLINE FIGURES

The two stats we get asked about most.

Online vs. in-store fraud rateGLOBAL / INDUSTRY
~5x
Lisa Ellis, then a MoffettNathanson analyst, said online purchases see about five times the level of fraud seen in-store. Treated as an approximate, not a precise universal rate.
Source: CNBC Television / YouTube interview clip, Apr. 26, 2023 — watch clip
Friendly fraud share of fraudulent disputesGLOBAL (VISA)
20–30%
Visa states friendly fraud represents around 20% of fraudulent disputes globally, and up to 30% for high-volume online merchants.
Source: Visa, Friendly Fraud Explained: Prevention and Solutions
Context only — not a universal rate: older Visa-internal reporting cited by Verifi (July 2022) put friendly fraud as high as 75% of all chargebacks in some contexts. We don't combine this figure with Visa's 20%/30% figures above, since they don't measure the same population. Source: Verifi, "Friendly Fraud is on the Rise," Jul. 2022.
CHARGEBACK OUTLOOK

Volume, cost, and growth — as projections, not results.

These are Mastercard/Datos Insights estimates and projections. We flag them as such every time they're used.

Chargebacks, 2025GLOBAL
261M
Reported figure for global chargeback volume.
Mastercard & Datos Insights (2025)
Chargebacks, 2028 (proj.)GLOBAL
324M
Projected global chargeback volume by 2028.
Mastercard & Datos Insights (2025)
Merchant cost, 2028 (proj.)GLOBAL
$33.8B → $41.7B
Estimated global merchant cost of chargebacks, rising toward 2028. A related Mastercard release cites a forecast near $42B.
Mastercard State of Chargebacks coverage / report summaries
Volume growth, 2025→2028GLOBAL
+24%
Chargeback growth outpacing card-transaction growth over the same period.
Mastercard, 2025 Global Chargebacks Outlook
GLOBAL CARD & ONLINE COMMERCE

Scale of the payments landscape.

Online card spendingGLOBAL, 2024
~$13T
Across more than 200 billion online-card transactions in 2024.
Datos Insights, Global Card Payments Trends
Global cashless transactionsGLOBAL, 2024
1.7T
Total cashless payment transactions; payment cards account for almost two-thirds by count.
Datos Insights, Global Card Payments Trends
Visa network scaleGLOBAL, FY2025
257.5B txns
Transactions processed on Visa's network, fiscal 2025, alongside $14.2T in payments volume.
Visa Annual Report 2025
SOURCE REGISTER

Full citations

  1. LexisNexis Risk Solutions (2025). True Cost of Fraud Study: Retail and eCommerce Edition.
  2. Mastercard (2024). First-Party Fraud: Why Is It So Hard to Tackle? (with Javelin Strategy & Research).
  3. Mastercard (2025). 2025 Global Chargebacks Outlook (with Datos Insights).
  4. Mastercard (2025). What's the True Cost of a Chargeback in 2025?
  5. Mastercard (2025). Scaling Efforts to Combat Friendly Fraud: First-Party Trust.
  6. Merchant Risk Council (2026). 2026 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report.
  7. Nilson Report (2025). Global Brand Cards in the United States — 2025, Issue 1301.
  8. Visa Inc. (2025). Fiscal 2025 Annual Report.

Every statistic on this page is drawn from primary payment-network research (Mastercard, Visa), independent industry benchmarks (Nilson Report, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Datos Insights, Javelin), or the leading merchant-industry association (Merchant Risk Council). Figures were cross-referenced August 2026 and should be revalidated before any further external publication.