My guest today is Monica Eaton, CEO at Chargebacks911. We explore her success mindset, her early start as an entrepreneur, and the story behind Chargebacks911. We then explore how chargebacks are costing the industry 250 Billion usd, the impact of AI and Chargebacks and end with her thoughts on what is limiting women to thrive in their careers.

If you enjoy this episode it would mean the world if you subscribe and give it a follow so that we can have more impact

Let’s dive into it!

👉 You can find Monica Eaton here

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicaeatoncardone/
• LinkedIn Chargebacks911: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chargebacks911/
• Website Chargebacks911: https://chargebacks911.com/

👉 And you can find Monica Millares here:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares
• Website: https://moni-millares.mystrikingly.com/

If you enjoy this pod, please follow and leave a 5 star rating on Spotify and a review on Apple podcasts

In this Purpose Driven FinTech episode we cover:

(0:00:00) How chargebacks are growing faster than ecommerce: a costly problem

(0:02:36) Monica's definition of success: feeling fulfilled and progressing

(0:04:59) Overcoming tough times by finding enjoyment and rewriting history

(0:07:23) Chargebacks 911 company culture and focus on creating impact

(0:10:17) Creating purposeful fintech products through collaboration and transparency

(0:13:58) The impact of transparency and the need for companies to adapt

(0:17:01) Monica's journey in building Chargebacks 911

(0:27:41) The size and cost of the chargeback problem in the industry

(0:30:31) The potential impact of AI in the chargeback process

(0:32:38) Structural challenges for women in thriving in their careers

SEARCH QUESTIONS

• What is the chargeback problem in payments?
• How much do chargebacks cost merchants?
• How to solve the chargeback problem?
• What is the impact of AI on chargebacks?
• How to prevent friendly fraud in e-commerce?
• What are the hidden costs of chargebacks?
• How to reduce chargeback rates effectively?
• What is post-transaction fraud?
• How do chargebacks affect authorization rates?
• What mindset do successful entrepreneurs need?
• How to build a FinTech business from scratch?
• What challenges do women face in FinTech careers?
• How to overcome imposter syndrome in business?
• What is the chargeback dispute process?
• How to start a business at a young age?
• What are the structural challenges for women in tech?
• How to balance career and family as a woman?
• What is the role of transparency in payments?
• How to turn negative motivation into success?
• What advice helps women thrive in their careers?

—

Production and marketing by Monica Millares. For inquiries about coaching, collabs, sponsoring the podcast or creating or editing your podcast email Monica at fintechwithmoni@gmail.com

Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

Monica Eaton: Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Likewise.

Monica Millares: Thank you. So before we go into talking about your story and the company and everything. It's a little bit of a getting to know you.

So let's start with what's your definition of

Monica Eaton: success? Man, I think a variety of things. I think success is really defined as. Going home every day and feeling like you accomplished something, feeling fulfilled. There's all sorts of discussion about it's not about accomplishing a goal, even though let's face it, we all love accomplishing goals, but it's also enjoying the journey.

Monica Millares: It's about the journey. And I think it's such a good reminder because sometimes we're like, Oh, I'm stressed out. But we stress out because we decided to stress out.

We can't choose Oh, it's tough. Let me see how I can make this fun. It's right.

Monica Eaton: I'll tell you one of the best pieces of advice that I read was I can't even remember the book. It was about, it was the study with all of these amazing athletes, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and people that actually didn't have this raw talent initially, But they just became incredible.

And it's interesting if you think about this, because it's always a wavy road and there's ups and downs. And so if you take a look at all of the downs that you've had, it's opportunities. You're always going to wake up with a brand new day and it moves forward.

Monica Millares: Yes. And is that what you use?

Because I was going to ask now that we're talking about bumpy roads, what do you do to handle those tough times? Do you actually think of it like, okay, cool. Next day, it's a good opportunity. Or do you do something else?

Monica Eaton: So there's a lot of discussion about work life balance.

But when you're in the trenches so many times and all of us go through that whatever walk of life we're in. Yeah. So for me. I, I'm literally thankful for every single problem that I've had, even for the most horrible challenges that I thought were absolutely unfair and because you know what it's given [00:04:00] me, it's given me the ability to be more relatable, to be empathetic, to understand people, to influence people.

And, the older that I get, the more I appreciate. Humanity and people. And several years ago, I would have thought it's all about technology and product. I'm going to have the best product. That's it and you come to appreciate there is nothing without people and life experience gives you a richness that.

Actually you're able to, really create more and more opportunities. And that is probably one of the most fulfilling things. If you interview any entrepreneur, it's not the money it's what good did you do in the world? How many people did you influence?

Company culture, because what you don't know, it's like I was in money 2020 now in Amsterdam. And there one day there was a party and we took a boss to a party. And then when I was like, Oh yeah, Monica church, Fox nine one one. I was like, Oh my God, those were the guys from the boss. So I was in your company, boss, going to this party in 2020.

And when I was there, I was like, Oh my God, like everyone here is you could. feel that it's a very nice culture. Like they were talking to each other in a very genuine way. Like it, it felt good. So I think that's great that you're talking about is reflected in the culture.

Monica Eaton: Yeah. Look, it's life is too short.

It's totally integrated into your life. But the other thing that I'll mention, I forgot to mention this. So, definitely, you have to take up a hobby. You have to create and this is where I have, I force myself. So, I love art, and I love painting. I thought I was going to be an artist and an architect.

That you want to continue to develop skills because it just creates a new, it creates a nice balance of fulfillment. If I paint a picture and I challenge myself for some reason, like even if I had a bad day, I can say, but you know what? Look at this picture that I did this weekend.

Monica Millares: No, but it is so true. Like for me, that thing for me is the podcast, right? I may be like, Oh, I don't know about a week. And I'm like, Oh, but I published my podcast. It's it makes me feel good. It does make you feel good. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. So I'm loving the chat and we have not even started.

So in your opinion, as an industry, how can we create more purposeful products? What do we need to do?

Monica Eaton: So I think that a few things so first I think we are in unprecedented times with the technology changes, chat, GPT, in some ways, it is the most exciting time because disruption is right around the corner on every angle.

But where there's a lot of opportunity and problems like that, it's also, it's one of the things that scares me to death, right? Because you just don't know. There's just so many different variables. So I think it really creates first. There's a terrific amount of opportunity for innovation.

We have, there's alternative payment methods, there's more open banking and vice versa. But what we find is often these two entirely different geographies. Even though they're connected, they maintain such a realm of independence and autonomy that we don't actually benefit from learning on how things connect.

And we need to include, we really need to now. There's no such thing as borders around the world. It's borderless. If you do business today, you do business with the whole world. You're open for business 24, 7, 365. And we are all connected. There's no way to divide us into swim lanes. So we need to collaborate more and, and likewise stateside, lots of advanced technologies for checkout processes, authentication processes, like different ways to create smarter advertising more and.

There's all sorts of end points and, and whoever understands this the best. It's going to solve the problem because otherwise you don't solve the problem. So I think yeah, this is a way that we can solve, solve things. And then last thing I'll mention. So the scary thing for, I think a lot of these cottage industries is people are afraid of change, of course.

It's secure, faster, better, and transparent. And that transparency and efficiency means there's going to be stress on complete business units that actually have made money on ignorance. And, and they'd money because there's black boxes in certain areas. And so those companies, like I always think of Netflix and blockbuster, and we are at an age now where any company that is in payments needs to adopt the philosophy, you are also in FinTech and you need to pivot because otherwise you will become blockbuster.

It's. Yeah, you can't operate with the same mindset. You have to challenge that, that state, that status quo.

I was like, oh my God. which mindset did she.

Have back then when she was like building a business since a very young age. Yeah. So

Monica Eaton: I saw when I was 19 and then and I didn't even, it was accidental, I wasn't even thinking of it. I just, it was all about that journey. I would just wanted to do something fun. And, and see what I can accomplish and raise the bar.

And to me, that was fun. And what motivated me as well, I was there's three types of motivation, right? For any human being. Yeah. And we all get motivated by people cheering us on and saying, Hey, good job. We get motivated by a coach that says, you know what? You can do better. And then some of us also get motivated by someone that says, you know what?

It's like the best cheerleader you can have.

Monica Millares: Yeah, no, but it's true. And I think we've heard that from many entrepreneurs, it is not just a positive. Drive that takes you it's the fear and it's the ego that exactly like you said for me in many cases like oh, no You said I cannot do it. Let me show it It is that quote unquote negative emotion.

So then how did charge back 9 1 1 came to life.

Because I had all this experience with traditional advertising mediums and building technology around consumer behavior trends. And so I failed miserably, it was so challenging, but I found my way to success eventually. And found the online environment is there's not a book that you can read.

That was my only dream. And I thought I'm going to, I, I know small, small dreams , so if you don't have confidence in yourself, no one else will. So why not set the bar as high as possible? No, you'll have to . So I thought I, and I did business. I focused on international markets and I.

I did joint ventures with a bunch of my previous clients that had no business online. So I thought this will actually be great. Every time that I would get to a point where now, Oh my gosh, I'm ready to celebrate. We finally are out of the red. Then I would get hit with these chargebacks out of nowhere.

I just want to charge a customer and refund a customer. Then I'm set. That's all I need. So we were getting like all these chargebacks and I didn't know what they were and I would get one account closed Another account closed and it was like this Achilles heel that I couldn't and anyone that I talked to They didn't give me any insight.

I would get feedback like Monica What you need to do is just refund more customers. You need a new fraud filter. I was using two fraud filters I hired two consultants I was following all of this advice and the only thing and I even did the stupidest thing like you realize when you start to doubt yourself, not only do you, are you succumb to that doubt, but you abandon all common sense.

All it did is drain all of our profits, all of our funds, and we were in dire strengths into refunds. Yeah, so I thought to your point, speaking of ego, you have to have, you have to have a pretty decent ego. And so I grappled with the idea. Do I want to, do I just want us to come to failure that I can't solve this problem that clearly everyone else in the world must solve because I can't find anything about it online.

So I'm going to call every single consumer and find out why did you file a chargeback? And I surveyed, I set up this survey and then I contacted my friends that had chargebacks and this was very early on. I didn't know anything about PCI compliance and I surveyed them as well. So we created, we codified all the statistics and the good news was I was my own worst enemy.

I was creating all my own chargebacks and I didn't even know it because. I had used affiliates, I didn't know what they were selling, I also had all these packages that were getting stuck in customs, I didn't know about it, and what was the biggest problem is that the description that was showing on the consumer's credit card statement was my fax number.

And I developed relationships with the managers of the chargeback departments. And literally I would receive spreadsheets every day of it's crazy. Like full credit card numbers, like everything because it's people, right?

Monica Millares: It's I'm like, Oh, wow, that is nuts, right?

Monica Eaton: This is way before anyone cared about privacy.

And the only purpose that I had is I just wanted to get out of charge back hell and focus on things like. Improving the customer experience, improving products, growing a business, and then something crazy started happening. And the banks that had shut my account down, called me and offered me new accounts.

They're like, we don't know what's going on with your account, but like you're recovering money from chargebacks. Your chargebacks have almost gone to nothing. What are you doing? And I started getting referrals from different banks, even risk managers whom I didn't even know. And I discovered that these risk managers, they all talk to each other.

Monica Millares: how to fix it help you.

Yes,

Monica Eaton: totally. So the so one of them was an enterprise merchant. This huge enterprise brand. and I thought I think that I could do like consulting. So I poured my heart and soul into just letting the whole world know about all the things that you can actually do.

And I created this website and with a name like chargeback sign one, one, you'd have to know I had no vision of doing anything professional. I was not interested in doing business with banks. I hated banks. I actually, I saw the whole world as an enemy and I was a victim and all I wanted to do is stand up for merchants and say, you can do something about this.

And I did these interviews that this could go two ways either. I could, I should probably change my name. They may hate what I'm doing, but I think the world needs to know that this isn't a taboo. It's a problem. And it just because a merchant receives the charge back, they, maybe they didn't do anything wrong.

So that was how chargeback Simon one was born. And a few years later. I discovered that everything I thought I knew about chargebacks, I actually didn't know very much at all because as you continue, especially in this industry change is just rapid. But then I discovered, wow, you know what actually.

Banks are not the enemy and the card networks are not the enemy. The enemy is ignorance and a lack of transparency and a lack of data, not understanding things, a lack of collaboration and bias and fragmentation and all this. So about five, maybe. Geez, maybe seven years ago moved to the UK and decided I want to build a solution for financial institutions and it, and looking at payments and the way that things are growing, I really want to solve this problem.

So, yeah, Fasting Forward. I moved back to the States. Yeah. And I'm having lots of fun solving new evolving problems as well. .

Monica Millares: Good. So for anyone listening, like how big is the chargeback problem if we were to put a number to it? Yeah,

Monica Eaton: So you have to look at this in a couple different ways.

50, so extremely expensive, right? Because when a merchant receives a chargeback, they not only are debited for the funds, they have administration fees, they have a processing fee, they may have a penalty, they lose the goods and services, they lose the acquisition costs, it's extremely expensive. So, and, and because of this expense and the growth, then if we take a look at the industry across the industry, we're probably facing costs around 250 billion a year, and that is, [00:27:00] is growing.

And it's, there's a lot of hidden costs that come with that as well, because you don't, you don't realize what type of friction do chargebacks cause. It's an incredible amount of friction and then if you take into account, which we also, no one ever talks about this, 250 million is just looking at the sheer costs to handle this issue.

But when this type of post transaction fraud, in other words, after the sale is made and then you have fraud, this has created such a fear and a stigma in the payments industry specifically, that it's also affecting the authorization rates. It's affecting the entire behavior of how the industry works.

Clearly, it's a passion, it's a passion of mine. But yeah, a lot, significant cost to the industry.

Monica Millares: Yes. And it just makes me wonder we were just talking about AI at the beginning of the episode. Now with AI properly getting into everybody's hands, it's also getting into Fredster's hands. Yes.

How do you see the impact in... The whole chargeback process.

And, and obviously that's why we have a business. But, I like to look at this as, this is not a human problem, this is actually a science. I prefer science, because science has certainty, and you get certainty when you understand All of the, all the relationships of the data and most importantly, you have all of the data.

And the only reason why we can't solve and resolve chargebacks smarter and better is because of two things. Either we're missing some crucial piece of information and so we're making a bad decision as a result. Or we've misidentified and misinterpreted information. So I think this is where AI and machine learning, we, we utilize this ourselves.

Monica Millares: Yes, that's a very good point. I'm going to change topics a little bit because I'm conscious that you are a very advocate of women in fintech and well.

In general, Advocate of Women, what do you think are the structural challenges that's stopping women to thrive in their careers?

Monica Eaton: Structural challenges. So I would say I would say the number one challenge is the structure of your brain. It's your mindset. 100%. So too many women today. Have this thought that they just can't have it all.

That actually lowers the bar for what you're willing to accept as a standard for yourself. That's number one. And, and I think once if women can adjust that mindset and acknowledge, actually I can have it all. Actually, I am worth this. Now we're going to, yeah, create the environment that is going to support everything that we want.

So you can't sit back and then pick up your career in two years and, and wallow that you don't have the same job and you're not further along. Just like anyone, like you, you have to maintain, find something you're passionate about, maintain that interest. Practice and really get engaged.

Monica Millares: Yeah, I like that because I think that is true. Many women are like, do I get married, have kids, or I have the career? Or maybe I have the career, but, and I'm married, and then it's do I want to have kids? Because kids means maybe not going up. In the career ladder

Monica Eaton: yeah, it's totally in our mind and it's even the little things like just as a totally different example.

And so and I would think early on in my career, I would stress myself out to get home, to make sure that I could cook because I wanted to be the ideal wife I wanted to be. These are the things that are going to make me happy. It's actually what's important is, okay, do I have something to eat?

That's probably going to offend people, but are you adding more quality to your life and to your family or to your friends or your relationships? By slaving over a stove for two hours a day. Probably not, probably not. You probably have other better things to do. It's it's just little things like that, that.

I think some of us need to confront, especially women. And I can say this. I can joke about myself because I even used to be a person. I refused to hire a cleaner literally because for me, I was like, yeah, I know. I, I know today I like, but, but years ago, years ago I was working 12 hours a day and I just had this mindset that was like, no.

And I don't even know why I feel attached to this. Yeah. So it's it's those little things that probably we don't even realize. We're letting it take our attention. We're letting it zap energy. And these are like obstacles that are preventing us from fulfilling more success where we want.

And it's just not worth it. You have to reprioritize and decide, look, level set and decide what's right for you.

And we have probably have different habits that are confining us in a block

Monica Eaton: yes, you don't realize, but the smallest things that you create guilt, if you allow guilt to get created, that is probably 10 X the amount of energy that you even recognize because imagine if you just could allow yourself not to feel guilty.

For anything and then, and just focus on the things that you care most about it. It's I think that's the challenge that we need to get ourselves to where there's not resentment, there's not guilt, you let go of the past and you figure out actually I have all of my energy and all of my focus in creating the best version of today that could ever exist.

And that's, I think where we need to get to as a society as well.

Monica Eaton: So the best way to find us is just simply visit our website and that's chargebacks nine one one.com. And if you're a financial institution, you can go to fi nine one.com and then you can visit me online@monicaec.com.

Monica Millares: Thank you, Monica. It was an amazing pleasure having you in the show. There was like so many. Pieces of wisdom in this conversation. So really appreciate it.

Monica Eaton: Likewise, it's, it's, it's almost like we've been friends for a long time now. It's been great talking with you and it doesn't feel like work, which is a good thing.

Monica Millares: I know. That's why I do this because it's definitely something very fun to do.