This year’s Money 20/20 felt like a turning point. Between the crowded floor, the nonstop product demos, and the energy around AI, one theme kept resurfacing in the most meaningful conversations: Agentic Commerce is here, and it’s already reshaping fraud and chargebacks. 

During his interview on Bankadelic Live from Money 20/20, Chargeflow’s Frank Frantz broke down exactly why merchants, payment leaders, and fraud teams should be paying attention. His perspective cut through the noise: the biggest changes in eCommerce aren’t happening on storefronts; they’re happening in the invisible layers of automation underneath them. 

Here are the key insights from Money 20/20, along with their implications for the future of merchant risk. 

1. Customer Friction Is Quietly Driving a Chargeback Crisis

This year’s conference made one thing clear: the line between experience and chargeback risk is thinner than ever. 

Frank explained it well:

“When customers can’t get fast, effective support, they skip the process entirely and go straight to their bank.”

Across the industry, merchants are seeing the same pattern:

• Slow support → frustration
• Frustration → disputes
• Disputes → chargebacks

These aren’t professional fraudsters; they’re real customers who feel boxed out of service channels and take the shortest path to a refund. A large indirect driver of chargebacks is due to CX failures.

For merchants, the message is simple: invest in support or pay for it later through disputes. 

2. Friendly Fraud Isn’t an Outlier. It’s the Majority.

One of Frank’s standout insights on the Bankadelic stage was the reminder that the chargeback landscape isn’t what most merchants think:

“Eighty percent of chargebacks are actually fraudulent.”

Not stolen cards. Not hacked accounts. 

They’re from the cardholding customers who received the goods and are still disputing. 

Money 20/20 sessions echoed the same shift: the industry is moving away from purely criminal fraud conversations toward first-party misuse, policy abuse, and digital shoplifting, a term used by Frank during his interview. 

Merchants across verticals reported:

• Higher dispute volumes
• More “not me” claims
• More customers are  using chargebacks as a convenience button
• Increased operational strain on small teams

This wasn’t just a Chargeflow observation but one shared across the entire event. 

3. Agentic Commerce is the New Frontier (And the New Risk Layer)

The strongest trend on the show floor wasn’t a booth or a product demo. 

It was a question:

What happens when AI agents start making purchases on behalf of customers?

Frank broke it down clearly:

“Platforms like OpenAI are now letting customers research and buy in the same place, with their stored payment credentials.”

This shift introduces new challenges:

• AI may buy the wrong item
• Customers may forget what they delegated
• Fraudsters may mimic automated patterns
• Merchants may lose visibility into intent
• Traditional fraud tooling can’t read agent-driven behavior

Money 20/20 discussions showed that AI-initiated transactions are blurring accountability, raising new questions:

• Who authorized the purchase?
• Who is the merchant of record?
• Who is liable when an AI makes a mistake?

For merchants, the takeaway is clear:

Agentic commerce brings efficiency but also a new layer of fraud and confusion that legacy systems can’t interpret. 

4. Chargeflow Prevent Was Built for This Exact Shift

One of the most grounded takeaways from Frank’s interview was how Chargeflow Prevent is preparing merchants for this new reality. 

When asked whether Chargeflow tracks repeat abusers across the network, Frank shared:

“We launched a product last month that does exactly that.”

Chargeflow Prevent identifies systematic dispute abusers across a 17,000-merchant network. Even if a customer is new to one store, Chargeflow can surface their history across the ecosystem. 

This matters because: 

• Agentic Commerce increases transaction volume
• Higher volume = more opportunities for abuse
• Consumers now dispute purchases initiated by automation
• Chargeback abusers slip through fraud prevention because they look exactly like good customers, same card, same identity, same behavior

Prevent sits squarely in between the transaction and fulfillment layers of the Order to Cash (O2C) process, providing merchants with protection against digital shoplifting, agent misuse, and friendly fraud without requiring extra operational effort. 

AI Is Changing the Checkout. And the Chargeback. 

Money 20/20 showcased a payments industry evolving faster than merchants can keep up with. 

But Frank’s insights made the direction clear:

• Fraud is becoming more subtle
• Chargebacks are becoming more behavioral
• AI is taking over parts of purchase flows
• Customers are delegating decisions
• Merchants need tools built for post-purchase intelligence

Agentic commerce is opening new opportunities for consumers and merchants alike, but also new opportunities for abuse. 

The companies that succeed in this new era of eCommerce will be the ones that adapt now – from embracing agentic commerce, revamping fraud prevention tooling, and preparing for the post-transaction disputes. Chargeflow is already building for that world: automation for disputes, intelligence for repeat abusers, and protection for merchants who want to grow without fear. 

If there was a theme running through Money 20/20, it was the early spark of an agentic commerce race. The direction is clear; the pace is what everyone’s watching now. 

Stay tuned for more insights on Agentic Commerce. We’re only at the beginning of this shift, and there is much more to explore.