Chargeback fraud, otherwise known as friendly fraud, occurs when a cardholder contacts the issuer (rather than the merchant) to dispute a legitimate charge in order to obtain a refund while still keeping the item(s). A cardholder might claim he or she never ordered the item, or that the item in question was never delivered. Whatever the claim, it is very difficult for an issuer to prove anything different than what the cardholder is reporting, and in order to keep the cardholder happy, the issuer will apply a chargeback.
Some friendly fraud can be deemed accidental. An instance of this would be if the cardholder doesn’t understand the billing descriptor on his or her credit card statement. Issuers don’t always have any more information about a charge or merchant than the cardholder does, and, again, will issue a chargeback to resolve the problem on their end.