What happens if an alert cannot be matched automatically?

It is marked as not matched instead of being attached to a guess. The team then matches it by hand from a list of candidate payments made with the same card, and the match is recorded with the name of the person and the time, before the refund is issued.

Why matching can fail

An alert carries the card's first six and last four digits, an amount, a date and sometimes an acquirer reference number. Automatic matching finds the transaction when those point to exactly one payment. It fails on cross-currency payments, partial captures, two purchases on the same card the same day, or dates that differ between issuer and processor.

What the platform does

• Marks the alert as not matched, rather than attaching it to the closest guess.
• Lists it in a dedicated view, with the time left before the response deadline.
• Offers candidate transactions on the same card, day by day, with a 5% amount tolerance after conversion.

The manual match

The person picks the transaction, confirms, and the alert now points to its payment. The match is recorded with the matching type, the person's name, the time and an optional comment. The deadline banner then changes from "time left to respond" to "time left to refund", and the refund is issued on the original payment with the reason "pre-chargeback alert". Refunding the wrong customer is worse than missing a window, which is why guessing is never allowed.