Monica Millares: [00:00:00] Hello, Monica. It's a pleasure having you in the show. You have an amazing story, so I'm really looking forward to having a chat with you.

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.

And feeling you're, continuing to improve and progress and [00:01:00] influence others. And, for me, that's what it's all about. Whether it's business, family, et cetera.

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.

Just amazing success in their careers and taking apart okay, what were the ingredients that these people had in common? And of course we all say [00:02:00] perseverance, like never quit. But it was interesting, just to your point, sometimes the journey isn't always fun, but one of the key contributors that each of these guys had was that they had the ability to rewrite history.

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.

I believe personally in work life integration, I want to have fun [00:03:00] doing everything. So, that's one thing is I don't put stress on myself to say, Oh, I can't wait to get away from work because actually I just have fun in my personal life. I'm in misery on one side and actually I want to work around people that I enjoy. I want to do things I enjoy. And if I'm not enjoying it, then what can I change about myself? How can I change about how I'm perceiving things? And we all have horrible days. And it's building a business is not fun. Like it feels fun when you get to a point of success and you think, ah, I can't believe we got here.

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?

Monica Millares: Yes. And it is you don't know this because like we haven't really met, but I can feel how your ethos and way of thinking is [00:05:00] reflected in your.

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.

All of us, maybe 20 years ago, it was okay. To just do a job that you didn't like today. Today. I think I want to work with friends. I want all of us to love this. it's actually more than a [00:06:00] job because we spend so much of our lives doing this. We're all multitasking and especially if you're working remote.

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.

And in many ways, building a business is similar. So I make myself take time to just do random creative things and I make sure that I get exercise but it could be anything like, somebody could go on for walks on the beach or read books or, but I think you have to just find something that, and not just something that you're going to say, I'm going to force myself to spend X amount of time, something that you can sink your teeth into like your other job.[00:07:00]

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.

This was just like getting to know each other as humans. So before we go into talking about fintech and chargebacks 9. This podcast is about creating, impacting FinTech as such as an industry. And it's about purpose, [00:08:00] right? And how can we can build better products.

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.

And and I think it's not as much about technology. Technology has a huge [00:09:00] play, but it's more about connections, understanding, know how, collaboration. And this is something that is missing in fintech. And if we look at for example, just comparing the U. S. environment to the European environment and even the payments industry, even though it's the same payments industry it is so drastically different.

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.

The US, I can say is light years behind the UK. I live there, right? So we were using contact lists in the UK consistently in the US. It's like a new thing. At [00:10:00] EMV, alternative payment methods, open banking, and even GDPR, but. There's a lot of new progressions and innovations and in technology.

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.

So there's, there's plus points and minus points in each and [00:11:00] opportunities to improve, but I think that's probably the biggest factor is recognizing, look, we're only going to have a solution as good as we understand the problem. And it's not, it isn't just two end points. It's a pyramid.

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.

But there's also some fear with the demand and, and growth of transparency. So it used to be number one thing that you need in fintech is security. Everyone cares about security. Then it's no, it's security and we want it [00:12:00] faster than we want it. Okay. Secure, faster and better. And today it's.

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.

Monica Millares: Yes. And I love that you use the word mindset because I'm loving your mindset as such, like just in these short [00:13:00] minutes. So just exactly. You have a very powerful mindset and your story is very unique.

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?

I don't think you could do it. And that would be me. And that's many, [00:14:00] many entrepreneurs and, and probably even even you yourself people that create something that it oftentimes you don't always have supporters and sometimes it's actually the negative. That you can mine to feel passion to move forward even faster.

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.

Monica Eaton: Speaking of the negative emotion, that was pretty much what started it. So [00:15:00] I so when I was let's see, I guess it was in 2008. I had this idea because I had this background in technology and I had studied consumer behavior and I thought I was an expert and how hard could it be, I'm going to set up this marketplace online.

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.

In fact, anything that you read is antiquated there. And it's constantly dynamic. It's changing. There's no set variables at well, it's just completely varied, right? And so really a challenging problem, but so satisfying because there's so much to learn. And [00:16:00] so I had developed this marketplace and I was a merchant, an online merchant, and the only thing that I wanted was to compete with eBay.

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.

My bank would get drained. I'd have to go get a loan. It was a nightmare. And when you get a merchant account as [00:17:00] an online business. No one tells you about chargebacks and as a merchant, as a business owner, the only thing that you care about is, okay, I need two things. One, how does this work?

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.

And, and so what I did is I said I know how I'm going [00:18:00] to get rid of chargebacks. Everybody says to refund. I instituted a policy. With the customer service center. I said, every single customer that calls , they will not get off the phone unless they're refunded . As you can imagine, that did nothing.

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.

Or am I going to dig my heels in and figure out a way? And everyone told me there's nothing you can do. So of course, plan B, I'm going to figure out a way. And so I proceeded to do what everyone said not to do, which was, okay, I'm [00:19:00] actually now adopting common sense principles and I need to find. Where the hell these chargebacks came from.

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.

Which no one paid attention to. And so this is [00:20:00] why I would never get phone calls. I never had any this is why it was just problems. So then I contacted the issuing banks. I contacted some banks in the UK. Didn't know that you weren't supposed to as a merchant, they don't talk to anyone.

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, and so bottom line, I solved my charge back problem. And I found out that 86% all of the customers that filed chargebacks. They never contacted us and they actually weren't trying to steal anything, but they just didn't know there was no education. And, and so I started [00:21:00] just developing software and we codified 106 different rules, developed a system.

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.

I had no idea how tiny this network was and they all talk to each other. And so one of the, businesses I started helping these businesses. And just giving them advice, [00:22:00] frankly, it was therapy every time that I talked to them because it was like, I share your pain, let me tell you

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.

Here's everyone. You think everyone is against you. They're not. Here's what you can [00:23:00] do. I'm actually going to be a voice and that's, I'm going to rally attention on this. And so it's just one of those crazy stories within a matter of weeks. I was contacted by the New York times and then the wall street journal.

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.

And just because a consumer files a charge back that they didn't realize they didn't, maybe didn't do anything wrong. Like the whole thing is just misunderstandings and we need to solve this. So I discovered, had a slew of interest from those articles and then decided, you know what, actually, I'm going to build a chargeback platform for [00:24:00] merchants.

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.

And so I need to go [00:25:00] upstream and it's a problem that affects everyone in the industry. And if you look at the U. S. market, is one currency, not a lot of alternative payment methods whereas internationally, different challenges, different problems, and when you build software, you want the most complicated problem to solve for.

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.

So first chargebacks in and of itself, they're. This is a growing statistic by about 20% year over year. So to get an idea of what this means, e commerce is growing at [00:26:00] around 15%. So you have chargebacks growing at a faster rate, which tells you this is a problem. It's like a flywheel effect, right? So now if you look at the cost for chargebacks, a merchant for every 1 of chargeback, They're spending, it costs them nearly 3.

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.

And in many ways, we have this a dichotomy with consumer behavior changing and developing these really negative habits. Why? Because we're teaching them that this is the frictionless experience. And it's backfiring. So we have negative consequences. [00:28:00] But yes, I could go on and on.

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.

Monica Eaton: With AI, I think that because the majority of chargebacks today are fueled by human behavior. Not AI, right? So at some point, maybe we can get AI to penetrate people's brains, but today we're not there. But AI can definitely be used to be able to parse data, to be able to aggregate data and the way that I look at chargebacks, chargebacks, first of all, it's a very manual, arduous process and [00:29:00] lots of cycles, very, very complicated with layers and layers of rules.

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.

But I think there's a lot of advancement that we'll see in terms of being able to establish higher predictability. And [00:30:00] create data driven decision models, which will establish better accountability and drive efficiency and change.

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.

They need to make a decision. They have to either get married and have kids or have a career. They have to [00:31:00] either be someone that's liked at the office or move up. You can have it all. And actually, this is the biggest issue that I see with women because you have to resist adopting that traditional mindset.

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 it I love FinTech and I love technology and for women especially you know what, if you wanna have a family, if you wanna travel the world, like this is where you should be investing your time, , because there's more remote opportunities, there's more [00:32:00] excitement. And, but just like anything in life, you have to maintain a fitness in this.

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.

So I'm from a very, very traditional [00:33:00] background and grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and I never had a single thing out of a box. My mother. didn't work, was the most ideal mother and she made a four course meal and we had homemade bread and Like this is and I was like sacrilegious and horrible that I like cooking, but I, I don't have time for cooking.

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?

Is it healthy? You know what? I'm fine. Actually. ordering a meal. I'm good with that. And, and I'd rather, so I think we actually need to work on freeing ourselves and creating like just level set and decide what is [00:34:00] really important because honestly, is it adding more quality? I know I'm harping on something here.

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.

I need to clean the house by myself, like [00:35:00] I caused it, right? But it's, it's that tradition that just says none of my sisters hire cleaners. This is just something that women do. I need to do this. I need to make time for it. And then I was like, actually, I really don't have time for this.

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.

Monica Millares: I love it. And then you use the word we need to free ourselves from all these. Ideas that we may have that we're not aware of that don't have really that much impact in our lives at the, like you were saying, do I need to spend two or three hours cooking every day, [00:36:00] but just like that, that's just an example.

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 Millares: I love that. And I think that is the best way to [00:37:00] finish the episode. It's just like very empowering at the same time. So Monica. Thank you so much for your time. Where can we find you and more about Chargebacks 9 1 1.

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.