Ratio Email Alerts

Pro’s chargeback ratio email alerts are the daily check that emails you before — and when — a card network’s ratio crosses its line. The alerts are deduplicated per program per calendar month, so you never get spammed for a program that’s been over the line for weeks — you get one alert the first time it reaches your warning level, and the next one in a new month if it’s still there. This page covers how the alerts work, what they tell you, and how to configure them.

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How the Daily Check Runs #

Once a day, a WP-Cron event (trustlens/chargeback_alert_check) runs through these steps. The event is scheduled when TrustLens is activated with a Pro license — first run about an hour later, then every 24 hours — so it runs at roughly the time of day the plugin was activated; there is no time-of-day setting.

1. Compute the current calendar month’s ratio for each card brand
2. Compare each brand’s ratio with its network line and with your warning level (the Ratio alert threshold, default 70% of the line)
3. For each program at or above the warning level:
   • Check whether an alert has already been sent for this program this month
   • If yes, skip
   • If no, send an alert and record it

The record is kept per program per calendar month (store timezone), so on the 1st of each month a fresh alert can fire. The last three months of records are kept.

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What the Alert Email Contains #

The alert is a short plain-text email:

Part	Content
Subject	“[TrustLens] Visa VAMP — approaching threshold” when the ratio is between your warning level and the line, or “[TrustLens] Visa VAMP — threshold crossed” when it’s at or over the line
Body	“Your VISA chargeback ratio this month is 1.120%. The Visa VAMP threshold is 1.50%.”
Link	“View details:” followed by a link to the Chargeback Monitor

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Configuration #

The alerts have one setting, in the Chargeback settings card on the TrustLens → Chargeback Monitor page:

Setting	Default	Description
Ratio alert threshold	70%	The share of a network’s line (50–100%) at which a program’s alert fires

Everything else is fixed:

• Always on with Pro. There is no separate on/off switch, and the alert doesn’t depend on the general notification settings.
• Recipient: the WordPress site admin email (Settings → General in WordPress). It does not use the TrustLens Notification Email.
• Timing: once a day, as described above.
• No volume floor: alerts fire on the ratio alone, however few disputes there are.

The network lines themselves can be changed in code with the trustlens/chargeback_thresholds filter (see Card Network Thresholds).

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The Dedup Behavior #

Dedup is keyed by (program, year-month). So:

• Visa reaches the warning level on March 5 → “approaching threshold” alert sent, recorded
• Visa still above the warning level on March 6, March 7, … → no further alerts
• Visa crosses the line on March 20 → still no further alert; the program was already alerted this month
• April 1 — dedup resets — if Visa is still above the warning level, a new alert fires

If you fix the issue and a program drops back below the warning level, then climbs again later in the same month, no second alert fires for that program-month. This is intentional — once you know about a problem, daily reminders aren’t useful. Keep an eye on the Chargeback Monitor (and the free dashboard alert, which appears whenever a line is crossed) for the rest of the month.

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Why Per-Program Per-Month #

Card networks evaluate ratios per brand per month. Alerts on the same cadence give you actionable visibility: when you receive an alert, you know a specific network has a specific issue in a specific month.

Alternatives considered and rejected:

• Daily alerts regardless of dedup: Too spammy. Quickly trained users to ignore.
• One alert per quarter: Too infrequent. Could leave a store over the line for weeks before notification.
• Blended single-alert: Hides brand-specific issues. Defeats the per-brand value of Pro.

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What to Do When You Get One #

1. Read the program and ratio in the alert
2. Click through to the Chargeback Monitor
3. Review the open disputes and recent activity for that brand — what reasons are dominating?
4. For friendly-fraud / fraudulent reason codes: open the Dispute Evidence Report for each open dispute
5. For product-not-received or product-quality reasons: investigate fulfillment / product issues
6. Turn on or tighten Auto-block after lost disputes (off by default)
7. Check new disputes daily for the remainder of the month

Don’t wait for the next month’s alert to confirm the issue resolved — check the per-brand ratio daily until the trend reverses.

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If You’re Not Receiving Alerts #

Common causes:

• WP-Cron not firing. Some hosts disable WP-Cron; you need a real cron job. The daily ratio check runs on the trustlens/chargeback_alert_check WP-Cron event — confirm WP-Cron is firing (for example with a Cron-events viewer plugin) or set up a real server cron job hitting wp-cron.php.
• Event never scheduled. Before 1.3.23 the daily event was created only when the plugin was activated with a Pro license, so a store that entered its license later never got it. From 1.3.23 TrustLens schedules trustlens/chargeback_alert_check on the next page load whenever Pro is active. If it is still missing from your cron list, check that WP-Cron runs on your site.
• Email delivery issue. WordPress’s wp_mail() is unreliable on many hosts. Install an SMTP plugin and verify deliverability.
• Wrong inbox. Alerts go to the site admin email, not to the TrustLens Notification Email.
• Already alerted this month. Each program alerts once per month.
• Below the warning level. If no brand has reached your warning level, no alert fires. Verify your actual ratio on the Chargeback Monitor.
• No card brand on the orders. Disputes and orders without a recorded card brand don’t count toward any brand’s ratio.

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Sending Alerts to More People #

The ratio alert has a single recipient: the site admin email. To reach a team:

• Use a shared mailbox or distribution list as the site admin email, or forward it from your mail system
• Use Pro automation: a rule on the Chargeback Filed or Dispute Recorded trigger with a Send Email Notification action reaches whoever you choose the moment each dispute lands
• Enable the Pro Chargeback Filed Alert notification, which goes to the TrustLens Notification Email

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Alert History #

There is no history screen for ratio alerts. TrustLens keeps only the record of which programs were alerted in each of the last three months (for deduplication). Your mail log or SMTP plugin is the place to confirm what was sent.

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Alerts vs Slack #

The ratio alerts are email-only. For Slack, build an automation rule on the Chargeback Filed (or Dispute Recorded) trigger with a Send Webhook action — that fires the moment a dispute lands, which is the leading indicator the ratio is about to move. The webhook body is TrustLens’s fixed JSON format, so route it through a relay (Zapier, Make, or your own endpoint) that turns it into a Slack message. See Triggers Reference.