Friendly fraud, which the networks now formally call first party misuse, is a cardholder disputing a legitimate charge they made themselves or authorized. Sometimes it is confusion, a forgotten subscription or an unrecognized billing descriptor; often it is deliberate, a refund hunted through the bank because it is easier than cancelling.
Why it matters
For subscription, digital goods and adult merchants, friendly fraud is usually the largest dispute category, and it lands as either a fraud reason code or a “product not received” claim, both of which count against you. It is also the most fightable: you have the evidence, the login records, the usage data, the cancellation flow. Network rules increasingly support merchants here, with programs that let issuers see order details before a dispute is filed. Treating friendly fraud as a data problem rather than a moral one is what separates merchants who control it from merchants who complain about it.