The explosion of digital commerce during the pandemic has triggered a surge in calls from consumers to card issuers and merchants seeking more details about purchases appearing on card statements.
Some unrecognized purchases could be fraudulent in the current environment, but many are legitimate and American Express is attempting to make it easier for consumers to confirm transactions they made with the rollout of Digital Receipts.
Amex customers unsure of whether they actually made a purchase that appears on their statement can go to Amex's app or website to find detailed purchase information, including the merchant’s name and logo, order number, data of order, items purchased and cost.
The service is initially available to check on purchases from a handful of large merchants including Apple — which piloted the service with Amex in recent months — plus Google and Microsoft. Square is also making Digital Receipts available for millions of its smaller merchants, Amex said in a
Digital Receipts was developed from a combination of technology from the Mastercard-owned fraud-detection firm Ethoca and Visa’s Verifi.
Seventy percent of consumers have contacted their credit card company to confirm a purchase they made, and 79% of merchants believe digital receipts would help them manage a rising number of queries and disputes.
Mastercard last year began deploying Ethoca’s Digital Receipts service to card issuers for Microsoft purchases to reduce the number of dispute charges banks receive.
