What Visa reason code 70 was and how to answer it

A chargeback with Visa reason code 70 meant the card was flagged before the sale ever happened. The code was called Card Recovery Bulletin or Exception File. It belongs to the old Visa rules, so you will only see it on older cases.

What is Visa reason code 70?

Reason code 70 was one of Visa's authorization reason codes. It applied when a merchant skipped authorization below its floor limit and the card was on the Card Recovery Bulletin.

The Card Recovery Bulletin was a list of problem cards. Banks put lost, stolen, fraudulent and otherwise risky cards on it. Merchants who processed cards by hand had to check that list before finishing a sale.

The code also covered the Exception File, which held the same kind of flagged cards. If you took a payment from a card on either list without asking for authorization, the issuer could take the money back. The tool for that was reason code 70.

When was reason code 70 used?

The code only fit a narrow set of facts. All of these had to be true.

• The card was on the Card Recovery Bulletin or in the Exception File.
• The sale fell below the merchant's floor limit, so no authorization was asked.
• The merchant still processed the payment.

Floor limits let small sales go through without a call for approval. That freedom was the trap. A small sale on a listed card could still come back as a chargeback.

If you got a notice with this code, the claim was not about fraud in the usual sense. It was about a skipped check. The issuer said you took a flagged card without the authorization step that would have caught it.

How could a merchant fight a reason code 70 chargeback?

Most of the time, the merchant lost these cases. The card was flagged, and the sale went through without authorization. There was one strong way to fight back.

A merchant could fight it with evidence the sale was started on the chip and approved offline, if that applied. A chip read with an offline approval showed the terminal did its own check. That could beat the claim that no check happened.

That proof only worked for chip transactions. A hand keyed sale with no authorization had no good answer. Neither did a swiped card that skipped the approval step.

If the code did not fit the facts, other old codes might have. Reason code 71 was Declined Authorization, and reason code 72 was No Authorization. Reason code 74 was Late Presentment. Each made a different claim about the authorization step, so the right code mattered for the right reply.

What replaced reason code 70 in the VCR Initiative?

Visa retired this code when it reworked its dispute system. As part of the VCR Initiative, Visa consolidated its 22 legacy reason codes into four dispute categories.

The old number no longer appears on new disputes. If your notice shows a two digit code like 70, it points to a case filed under the old rules. If you are not sure what your notice is telling you, start with how to read a chargeback notice.

The old neighbors of code 70 are gone too. Reason code 73 was Expired Card, and reason code 75 was Transaction Not Recognized. Reason code 77 was Non-Matching Account Number, and reason code 78 was Service Code Violation. You can still read about each one, including reason code 73, Expired Card and reason code 75, Transaction Not Recognized.

Key takeaways for merchants

• Reason code 70 meant the card was on the Card Recovery Bulletin and the sale skipped authorization below the floor limit.

• Chip sales with offline approval were the main defense. Hand keyed sales had none.

• The code is retired. New Visa disputes use the four categories from the VCR Initiative.

• An old code on a notice means an old case. Answer it with the proof the old rules asked for.

• After you send your reply, the case can still move. See what happens after you answer a chargeback for the next rounds.

Sources

• web.archive.org
• web.archive.org