I like where this discussion is headed.
To address Amoxicillin's questions, Yes, you can (and probably should) add more transactions to offset/dilute your higher-chargeback traffic, and try to keep that overall rate under the magic 1% rate. It's not quite as simple as suggested though, because the thing you absolutely don't want to end up doing is adding these new, non-profitable transactions to dilute your overall chargeback rate, and end up getting new chargebacks on these transactions, which can happen pretty easily by accident.
The "micro-payment" examples touched on above, where you run a bunch of transactions through for small amounts to get your count up can and does help if done properly. (I should mention here that the "CB %" flag isn't only done on total txn count, but dollar volume can be watched too, so 50 transactions of a dollar each aren't exactly the same as 50 txns of $80 each, but most banks/ISOs don't really notice this, yet, so it works for now.). Running a bunch of these cheapy transactions of a different merchant's/product's can bite you in the ass though, because your credit card descriptor may confuse the customers, so they end up charging back that $1 transaction because they don't recognize it, which really stings. Now, instead of diluting your CB ratio, you are making it worse, on txns that make you no money and cost more in chargeback fees (typically $25 a pop) than you could ever hope to make off them, so its a double-whammy.
Say your product is called "Diet Berriez 360", it does 1000 txns a month,and it has a 2% chargeback rate on its volume. Ideally, you want to keep getting those same 1000 (profitable) txns per month, but you also want to add 1000 new "low-risk" (read: non-profitable) txns to your volume to dilute that overall monthly CB rate down to 1%. You hit up your buddy Joe with a gaming site, SuperMario360,com, and tell him you want to have him push a $1 (loss-leader) gaming tips membership or ebook. He says great, he sells it on the site to 1000 of his customers at a great value(for no profit, probably even a loss) and runs the 1k new transactions of a buck apiece through your merchant account. Great, now your chargeback rate is down to 1%, right? Wrong..
Even if all the customers of the video game site love the $1 ebook/membership, some percentage of them will see that line on their credit card statement that says "Diet Berriez 360" and "WTF, my skinny ass dont need no diet, I'm charging that back" and they do, probably at a rate of greater than 2% even over a buck. It's pretty near impossible for an Advertiser to change their merchant descriptor back and forth (plus you can get slapped with an instant 20k fine from Visa for having a "misleading CC descriptor, which really sucks). Now, instead of diluting your CBs, you have compounded the problem, on sales that have made you no money.
The way to do it best, in my opinion, is through some kind of cross-sell/up-sell of a same or similar product that fits under the same CC descriptor and brand-name, and that is such a clear value that no customer would ever charge it back (some will regardless, but you just have to deal with it). Usually these are add-on products, such as wrinkle remover to add to a skin cream offer, or a jump-rope to a diet pill, anything that the customer perceives as adding plenty of value for just a tiny cost. You will never make a profit off these add-on products, but you could save your merchant account. It's good customer service/karma too, work to add value in their eyes and you are less likely to end up in a bad spot in the rebill game to begin with.
I know Advertisers that charge the product cost and its shipping cost as 2 separate txns, just to up their txn count. That can blow up in your face too though, because a customer angry about the rebill may also chargeback the other shipping charge too, giving you 2 CBs instead of 1. Some merchants "split" larger transactions into multiple smaller ones, like turning a $90 rebill into 1 $50 txn and 2 $20 ones. I dont personally do this, I know peeps who do, and I think it's a dangerous game. Strictly speaking, Visa has new rules that technically prohibit this, but its awful hard to catch. You still have the risk of an angry customer getting multiple CBs against you off the same transaction, plus pissing off Visa, so I recommend against it. If you are going to split larger $$ amount purchases into multi smaller txns, be sure to space them apart as much as possible. First, customer is less likely to notice 5 charges from the same merchant one after the other, Second, banks are less likely to process a later CB if they see the customer has had multiple historical "purchases" over a period of time from that same merchant, its hard for the to say "fraud, never ordered" when they have other transactions from months before that they never complained about.
