# Support
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/ethoca-alerts-for-merchants/documentation/support/index.md

## FAQ {#faq}

[Ethoca](https://www.ethoca.com/) is an award-winning provider of collaboration-based intelligence and technology solutions that empower businesses around the world to fight fraud, prevent disputes, and improve the customer experience.

Powered by the ever-growing Ethoca Network, our solutions provide rich intelligence throughout the customer purchase journey and close costly communication gaps between all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem. These include thousands of the world's biggest ecommerce brands, the largest banks, service providers and consumers. For the first time, fraud, customer dispute, and purchase insights are now available and actionable in real time -- delivering significant revenue growth and cost saving opportunities for all.

Ethoca was acquired by Mastercard in April 2019.
See the [Quick Start Guide](https://developer.mastercard.com/ethoca-alerts-for-merchants/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/quick-start-guide/index.md) for steps on setting up your project and accessing the sandbox. After you successfully integrate in sandbox (see the [Reference Application Tutorial](https://developer.mastercard.com/ethoca-alerts-for-merchants/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/reference-app-tutorial/index.md)), you can convert your sandbox keys to production. Request Production access for your project, which requires approval from Mastercard and assistance from the [Ethoca Customer Delivery Team](mailto:customerdelivery@ethoca.com). Contact [sales@ethoca.com](mailto:sales@ethoca.com) for pricing information. When providing your outcome and refund flag, ensure that you process the alert within 24 hours with a final state outcome to optimize your chance of stopping the chargeback. The first final state outcome you provide for an alert is the outcome that will be sent to the issuer. *In_progress* and *shipper_contacted* are considered in-transit outcomes. In best practice, don't leave an alert with a in-transit outcome for longer than 24 hours. The issuers send us transactions for both cases. These tables list the possible outcomes that you should provide with a description of each, depending on whether the transaction is a case of confirmed fraud or a customer dispute:

##### Fraud is confirmed {#fraud-is-confirmed}

|       Outcome        |                                                                         Description                                                                          |       Refund recommendation       |
|----------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| Stopped              | This alert allowed you to stop the fraud.                                                                                                                    | Refunded Not Settled              |
| Partially Stopped    | You were able to stop part of the fraud. For example, if a cardholder ordered two products and you shipped one but still have one.                           | Refunded Not Refunded Not Settled |
| Previously Cancelled | You refunded the transaction before we sent the alert because either you spoke with the cardholder or your own internal fraud system detected this as fraud. | Refunded Not Settled              |
| Too Late             | The fraudster has already used all of the goods/services.                                                                                                    | Refunded Not Refunded Not Settled |
| Not Found            | You cannot locate this transaction in your system.                                                                                                           | Not Refunded                      |
| Account Suspended    | You have suspended this account from placing future orders.                                                                                                  | Refunded Not Refunded Not Settled |
| Other                | None of the options listed are applicable for this transaction.                                                                                              | Refunded Not Refunded Not Settled |

<br />

##### Customer is disputing the transaction {#customer-is-disputing-the-transaction}

|            Outcome             |                                                                 Description                                                                  | Refund recommendation |
|--------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------|
| Resolved                       | The case has been resolved with the customer. No chargeback is expected because either the refund is being processed or no refund is needed. | Refunded Not Refunded |
| Resolved - Previously Refunded | The case has been resolved with the customer and a refund has already been processed.                                                        | Refunded              |
| Unresolved- Dispute            | You disagree with the reason for dispute. The chargeback will be disputed                                                                    | Not Refunded          |
| Not Found                      | You cannot locate this transaction in your system.                                                                                           | Not Refunded          |
| Other                          | None of the options listed are applicable for this transaction.                                                                              | Refunded Not Refunded |

Contact the [Ethoca Customer Delivery Team](mailto:customerdelivery@ethoca.com) to receive sample templates to test against. The team works with you so that the integration is working as expected. These tests must be completed to verify that you are ready to launch the API into production:

1. Alerts are being delivered successfully:
   * **Push Integrations:** Alerts are successfully reaching the Merchant's endpoint, which is providing a response according to our specification.
   * **Pull Integrations:** Merchants are pulling all alerts in the queue and acknowledging them.
2. Alerts are being successfully matched on the Merchant's side to the corresponding transactions.
3. Alerts are being successfully updated with outcomes.
If the `acquirerReferenceNumber` (ARN) is available for the alert, and the ARN is available for the transaction, then use this along with the card number to match the alert with the transaction. ARN's are recycled and aren't unique by themselves. But an ARN paired with a card number is unique.

If the ARN isn't available, use any of the following fields that are available to help match:

* Card number
* Transaction date and time (within a day or two)
* Amount
* Transaction ID
* Authorization code

A partial card number (BIN + Last 4) can be used if the full card number isn't available for the transaction.
If an alert can't be matched to a transaction, it should be updated with the `Not Found` outcome. It's possible to review alerts with the `Not Found` outcome via the Ethoca Portal. We recommend reviewing this list periodically, especially after going live with the integration, to ensure that the matching logic can be optimized from these learnings.

## Get Help {#get-help}

### Contact us for technical support. {#contact-us-for-technical-support}

Get Help