What are TC40 and SAFE fraud reports?
TC40 and SAFE are fraud reports filed by card issuers. A TC40 is the record a Visa issuer sends to Visa when a cardholder reports a transaction as fraudulent. SAFE is the name long used for Mastercard’s equivalent, now called the Fraud and Loss Database. Both feed scheme monitoring programs, even when no chargeback is filed.
In detail
TC40 and SAFE reports are how issuers tell the schemes about fraud. They are separate from chargebacks.
What they are
- TC40: the fraud report a Visa issuer files when a cardholder says a transaction was not theirs.
- SAFE: the historic name of Mastercard’s fraud reporting. Mastercard now calls it the Fraud and Loss Database and describes it as the central repository for fraud transactions.
How they differ from a chargeback
A fraud report is information. It does not move money. A chargeback is a financial claim against the merchant. One fraudulent transaction can produce a report only, a chargeback only, or both. An issuer may report fraud without disputing, for example when the amount is small or the transaction was authenticated.
Visa’s VAMP ratio adds TC40 reports to disputes. A merchant cannot contest a TC40 and often does not see it, because the report goes from the issuer to the scheme. The practical consequence: refunding a fraudulent transaction after the report was filed does not remove it from the count.
Reducing fraud at the source is the only reliable lever. See card scheme monitoring programs and velocity limits. Operators track both report types in platform supervision dashboards.