Check your Visa VAMP exposure and your Compelling Evidence 3.0 data

Who it is for

• Owners of online shops and subscription businesses in Europe that accept Visa cards through Stripe, Adyen, Nets or another acquirer
• The person who handles disputes and fraud at such a merchant
• Payments leads at small payment companies who need one clear reference for their team

You do not need to be a payments expert. Start with your processor dashboard or reports. For the CE 3.0 audit you also need read access to your order records and fraud tool, or help from someone who has it.

The problem

Visa merged its fraud and dispute programmes into one in 2025 and lowered the merchant threshold in Europe on 1 April 2026. Outside one region it counts fraud reports and disputes, not money. One fraudulent order often counts twice. A refund does not take a dispute out of the count, and winning does not either. The rules are public, but they are spread across a long rulebook, a fact sheet and processor notices.

For disputes processed from 24 October 2026, Compelling Evidence 3.0 can match a card with a linked credential such as a wallet token, and can use history at other merchants of the same acquirer. Whether that helps you depends on what your processor supports and on the order data you have already stored.

What you get

• How the VAMP ratio works. The formula, the three Visa reports behind it, which month each event lands in, and how Visa decides which account is yours.
• Small merchant exposure. Why the 1,500 event floor matters for Excessive Merchant identification, and why fees can still apply below it.
• What counted events can cost, the grace period and the European exception, and why your acquirer's contract decides.
• The double count and the exclusions. When one transaction counts twice, and what does not help.
• Compelling Evidence 3.0 for 10.4 disputes in plain English, where Stripe's version differs, and exactly what changes on 24 October 2026.
• The field list. Every data element the Visa rules name for a CE 3.0 response, mapped to Stripe's field names.
• A two part CE 3.0 audit. Check whether the data exists and whether it would match across orders. Allow a few hours by our estimate.
• Export steps for Stripe and Adyen, and what to ask any other acquirer for.
• The monthly checklist, also as a separate sheet.
• Worked examples, a reusable evidence form and ten questions for your acquirer.

Visa's rules and fact sheet are cited at the source. Figures we did not find in Visa's public sources are marked as processor-reported, and our own suggestions are marked as suggestions.

A short sample

How one transaction counts twice. If an issuer files a fraud report and then a dispute on the same sale, Visa counts both. That is the normal path for fraud. So 100 fraudulent orders that all become disputes add 200 to your VAMP count, not 100. An estimate built from a dispute export alone can undercount badly, because every fraud report is missing from it. You need both exports, fraud reports and disputes, and you must not de-duplicate a transaction that appears in both.

Questions

Will this get me out of a monitoring programme or win my disputes? No guide can promise that. It explains the rules and the data so you can see your position and act on it. Results depend on your business, your processor and the issuer.

Is this legal advice? No. It explains Visa's published rules and processor documentation. Your acquirer's contract governs what you pay.

Does it work for my processor? The rules are Visa's, so they apply to online and other card-not-present Visa payments that any acquirer processes through Visa. The guide gives export steps for Stripe and Adyen and a set of questions for any other acquirer. Orders paid through a buy-now-pay-later provider's own payment method follow that provider's dispute process and are not covered.

What about Mastercard? The guide covers Visa. Mastercard runs separate programmes with different rules.

Do I have to connect anything or upload data? No. It is a document. You run the checklist on your own exports, and your data stays with you.

Refunds

If the guide is not useful to you, write to us within 14 days of purchase and you get your money back.

Terms and privacy

Your order is placed with Polar, our merchant of record, which processes the payment, handles VAT and sends the download. We receive your name and email address from the order so we can deliver updates and answer questions, and we use them for nothing else. We store no card data. The guide is licensed for use inside your own business and may not be resold or published.

Support

Questions before or after you buy? Email support@disputesmith.com.

Disputesmith writes plain-English operating guides on card payment rules for merchants. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.