TC40 vs TC15: What Counts Where in Your VAMP Ratio

If you're trying to reconcile your VAMP ratio against your chargeback log and the numbers don't match, it might be because TC40 and TC15 are two different Visa settlement records.

Each record has its own trigger, and a single transaction can generate both.

TC40 fires when a cardholder's bank flags a transaction as fraud, whether or not a dispute is ever filed. TC15 fires when a dispute is formally opened, by the cardholder or the issuer. Both count in the numerator of your Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) ratio, and nothing about winning or resolving one clears the other.

So, if your VAMP ratio and chargeback log don't match, this is probably why. Your dispute log tracks TC15 while your VAMP ratio also counts TC40s that never became disputes at all.

What Is a TC40?

A TC40 is a fraud report an issuer files with Visa the moment a cardholder tells their bank a charge was fraudulent — it is not a chargeback and does not require one. Visa's rule on issuer fraud reporting states it plainly: an issuer must report Fraud Activity through VisaNet "irrespective of... the fraudulent Transaction's status (for example: if it was approved, declined, and/or not settled)."¹ The report exists because a phone call happened, not because a chargeback was filed or money moved.

"TC40" itself is not a term in Visa's Core Rules — it is a settlement-file naming convention that the industry, including issuer processors and monitoring vendors, uses for this record. Visa's own language for the underlying obligation is "Fraud Activity" reported through the Fraud Reporting System (FRS).¹ The mechanism is tier-1 verifiable even though the three-letter label is not.

This has a direct practical consequence: a fraud report can exist on a transaction that was never charged back, never refunded, and never appears in your dispute log. If a cardholder calls their bank, says the charge is fraud, and the bank simply reverses it internally without ever routing a formal dispute to you, you still take a TC40. You may never know it happened.

What Is a TC15?

A TC15 is the record of a formal dispute — the chargeback itself — created the moment the dispute is filed, either by the cardholder through their issuer or by the issuer on the cardholder's behalf. Unlike a TC40, a TC15 requires the dispute process to actually run: a reason code gets assigned, a time limit starts, and you get a chance to respond or accept the loss.

TC15, like TC40, is settlement-file convention rather than a term printed in Visa's Core Rules — the rulebook talks about "Disputes" by condition number (10.4, 13.1, and so on) rather than by transaction code.² The record it names, though, is unambiguous: it is created at the moment of filing and nothing that happens afterward removes it. Winning a dispute at representment reverses the money. It does not reverse the record.³

Does a Dispute Count Twice in VAMP?

Yes, when a transaction generates both a fraud report and a formal dispute, it counts twice in your VAMP ratio — once as a TC40, once as a TC15 — even though it is one underlying transaction and one underlying customer complaint. The VAMP ratio is built from a straightforward sum:

Nothing in that formula deduplicates. A cardholder who calls their bank, gets a TC40 filed on their behalf, and then also has the issuer open a formal dispute has produced two entries in your numerator from one incident. This is the single most common reason a merchant's VAMP ratio runs higher than their internal chargeback count would predict.

TC40 and TC15 Are Independent Records — Not a Sequence

The two records are commonly assumed to be stages of one process: first the fraud gets reported, then the dispute follows. That is one path, but not the only one, and treating it as the only one is where reconciliation breaks.

Three patterns actually happen, and each hits your ratio differently:

None of these require the other to exist. That is the actual relationship: two independent reporting systems that happen to draw on the same underlying transactions, not two steps of one workflow.

Does Resolving One Clear the Other?

No. Clearing a TC15 dispute does not touch the TC40 fraud report on the same transaction, and there is no equivalent action that clears a TC40 by itself — only Compelling Evidence 3.0 (CE3.0) submitted through Visa Order Insight, and accepted by the issuer, removes a fraud-flagged transaction from the numerator.⁴

This is the same mechanic covered in more detail on RDR vs CDRN vs Order Insight: what each one actually suppresses — that page walks through why alert-based tools like Rapid Dispute Resolution and Verifi's CDRN clear the TC15 but leave the TC40 standing, and why Order Insight is the only path Visa provides that reaches both records on the same transaction.

The short version worth repeating here: winning a dispute at representment reverses money, not records. Preventing a dispute through RDR or CDRN removes the TC15 but not a TC40 already filed or still to come. The only tool that removes a TC40 is one that intervenes with the issuer directly, before or during the dispute — which is what CE3.0 through Order Insight is built to do.

What to Do with This

Pull your fraud-report count separately from your dispute count. If your monitoring only tracks chargebacks, you are structurally blind to the TC40 side of your own ratio. Ask your acquirer or processor for both numbers.

Check the overlap. The share of your TC15 disputes that also carry a TC40 tells you how much of your ratio a dispute-prevention tool like RDR can actually touch — and how much requires a tool that reaches the fraud report directly.

Don't assume a quiet dispute queue means a quiet fraud-report count. TC40s can and do fire without ever reaching your chargeback log. A period where your disputes are flat can still be a period where your TC40 volume is climbing.

Related

• Does Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR) Remove Chargebacks from Your VAMP Ratio?
• Understanding VAMP Thresholds: The Complete Merchant Reference
• Chargeback Glossary

TC40, TC15, and TC05 are settlement-file naming conventions, not terms defined in Visa's Core Rules. These definitions were confirmed with Shawn on the companion RDR/CDRN/Order Insight page (approved 8/18/26) and are reused here verbatim.

Sources

1. Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition, §1.9.4.3 "Issuer Fraud Activity Reporting," Rule ID 0002389, p.139. An Issuer must report Fraud Activity through VisaNet, as specified in the Fraud Reporting System (FRS) User's Guide, "irrespective of both: the fraudulent Transaction's status (for example: if it was approved, declined, and/or not settled)" and the processing network used. visa-rules-public.pdf ↩ ↩²

2. Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition, Chapter 11, Dispute Resolution — dispute conditions are organized and cited by condition number (e.g., §10.4, §13.1) throughout, not by settlement transaction code. ↩

3. Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition, §10.4.3.1 "Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP)," Rule ID 0029286, p.633. The section establishes the VAMP program and its count-based structure but delegates specific thresholds to the non-public Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program Guide (Appendix A, p.822). ↩

4. Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition, §11.7.5.3, Table 11-28 (Rule ID 0030254) and §11.7.5.6, Table 11-31 (Rule ID 0030257), pp.699–708, covering the Compelling Evidence 3.0 (CE3.0) prior-transaction test under Dispute Condition 10.4. No public Visa source names "Order Insight" — it is a Verifi (a Visa company) product name, not rulebook language. Its role as the delivery channel for CE3.0 comes from Verifi/Visa product documentation and industry reporting, not the Core Rules. ↩