Mastercard reason code 4871: what it means and how to respond

What Mastercard code 4871 means and when it applies

Mastercard code 4871, “Chip Liability Shift—Lost/Stolen/Never Received Issue (NRI) Fraud,” covers fraud involving a genuine card that was lost, stolen, or never reached the cardholder. The purchase must be a card-present transactionA purchase made with the physical card at the point of sale, rather than online, by telephone, or by mail.. The cardholder denies authorizing the purchase and says they no longer had, or never had, the card in their possession.

For code 4871 to be valid, all of these requirements must be met:

1. The cardholder denied the purchase and possession of the card. The cardholder said they did not authorize the transaction and that the card was lost, stolen, or never received.
2. The payment card was genuine and PIN-preferring. For a contact transaction, it was a hybrid PIN-preferring cardA card with both a chip and magnetic stripe whose verification list gives PIN a higher priority than signature.. For a contactless transaction, the card or device also had to prefer PIN or verification performed on the device.
3. Both institutions participated in the rule. The issuer, which issued the card, and the acquirer, which connects the merchant to the Mastercard network, were both in a country or corridor covered by the EMVEMV is the technical standard for chip cards. Its liability-shift rules determine who bears the loss when chip and PIN are not processed as required. chip-and-PIN liability shift.
4. The terminal prevented the proper use of chip and PIN. At least one of the technical conditions below occurred.
5. The fraud was reported on time. The transaction was reported as lost, stolen, or never received in the Fraud and Loss DatabaseMastercard’s database where issuers report fraudulent transactions. For code 4871, the reporting date must be within three days of the chargeback date. within three days of the chargeback date.
6. The chargeback was filed on time. The issuer stayed within 120 calendar days of the transaction’s Central Site Business DateThe central processing date recorded by Mastercard in the GCMS message. It counts as day zero for this deadline..
7. No exclusion applied. The transaction could not fall within a category that Mastercard makes ineligible for code 4871.

For the fourth requirement, at least one of these conditions is enough:

1. The terminal could read only the magnetic stripe. It could not process the chip.
2. The terminal could read the chip but could not verify the PIN. Under the general rule, it had to support at least offline PIN verification. US terminals must support both online and offline PIN; Malaysia domestic transactions use an online-PIN standard.
3. The terminal could verify the PIN but did not send the chip data. DE 55The message field containing technical data generated by the chip and the result of the verification method, such as online or offline PIN. was absent from the authorization message.
4. The PIN pad was absent or broken. The hybrid terminal did not allow the cardholder to enter the PIN.
5. The contactless purchase exceeded the verification limit. Even so, the terminal could not verify online PIN or had no working PIN pad.

When all the requirements combine, the terminal used for the sale prevents chip and PIN from protecting the transaction. The fraud loss therefore shifts from the issuer to the acquirer and the merchant.

Source for the requirements and technical conditions: Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, May 19, 2026, Table 3 and “Definitions,” pp. 607–611; “Issuer Chargeback,” pp. 616–618.

Code 4871 does not cover counterfeit cards, card-not-present fraud, or a valid chip-and-PIN transaction. Use 4870 when the card was counterfeit and 4837 for e-commerce, telephone-order, mail-order, or card-not-present recurring fraud. It also excludes ATM transactions, most CAT 2 and CAT 3 transactions, DSRP, Commercial Payments Accounts, Mastercard QR payments, successful biometric-card authentication, and properly identified contactless transactions that were below the CVM limit or successfully verified.

Source for the exclusions: Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, May 19, 2026, Table 3, p. 608, and “Transactions Ineligible for Chargeback,” pp. 611–613.

Who files the dispute and what happens next

The issuer files the chargeback in MastercomMastercard’s system where the issuer files the dispute and the acquirer submits its response and documents.. The merchant does not respond directly to Mastercard; it gives its records to the acquirer.

To file code 4871, the issuer must provide both document groups below:

1. Proof of the fraud. One accepted document is enough: a cardholder message, letter, or email; the issuer’s written certification; a police report; or, for a corporate card, a complaint from a company or government-agency representative. The document must state that the transaction was unauthorized and that the card was lost, stolen, or never received.
2. The verification-method priority. The CVM listCVM means Cardholder Verification Method. The card or issuer defines this list to rank ways to verify the cardholder, such as PIN and signature. must show that PIN ranked above signature.

Form 0412, completed after a direct conversation with the cardholder or representative, may replace the statement but has its own conditions. As a general rule, before the chargeback the account must be closed, blocked on the issuer’s system, and listed for card capture for up to 180 days or until expiration. The rulebook provides exceptions to the listing requirement for certain cards issued in Latin America and the Caribbean and for certain German-issued cards; these exceptions do not remove the other Form 0412 conditions.

The issuer has 120 calendar days from the transaction’s Central Site Business Date to file the case. The acquirer then has 45 calendar days from the Settlement Date or Central Site Business Date of the chargeback to file the second presentmentThe acquirer’s formal response to the chargeback in Mastercom, using the permitted route, reason code, and records that contest it.. When the route requires documents, the acquirer must upload them to Mastercom within eight calendar days after generating the response, or ten days for Maestro.

Source for the documents and deadlines: Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, May 19, 2026, “Supporting Documentation” and “Issuer Chargeback,” pp. 615–618; “Acquirer Second Presentment,” pp. 619–628.

If the issuer rejects the second presentment, pre-arbitration is optional under the standard rule, and Mastercard recommends proceeding directly to arbitration. If the issuer chooses pre-arbitration, it must give the acquirer ten calendar days to respond. With or without that step, the issuer has 45 calendar days from the second presentment to take the case to arbitration. Domestic transactions in Costa Rica and Tanzania follow their own pre-arbitration rules. Second-presentment deadlines also differ for domestic transactions in Costa Rica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and Tanzania.

Source for the process: Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, May 19, 2026, “Issuer Submission of a Pre-arbitration Case,” pp. 629–631.

How to reduce the risk of this reason code

Mastercard does not publish a prevention checklist specifically for code 4871. The steps below follow directly from the conditions that make the chargeback valid:

1. Process the chip and request the PIN specified by the card. Keep the chip reader and PIN pad available and working.
2. Confirm the chip data reaches every required stage. DE 55 must reach the authorization and the First Presentment/1240 messageThe record the acquirer sends after the purchase to present the transaction to Mastercard and begin settlement. when required. Ask the acquirer or processor how to retrieve this record for each transaction.
3. Record a chip-reading failure correctly. A technical fallbackThis occurs when the terminal attempts the chip, a technical failure occurs, and the purchase finishes by magnetic stripe or manual entry. The authorization and first presentment must record the event. identified in both the authorization and first presentment can invalidate code 4871. Simply bypassing the chip or operating with a broken PIN pad does not create this defense.
4. Keep the verification result. The record should show whether the transaction used online PIN, offline PIN, or another verification method accepted for the selected response route.

Source for the conditions underlying these steps: Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, May 19, 2026, “Definitions” and “Transactions Ineligible for Chargeback,” pp. 609–613; “Issuer Chargeback,” pp. 616–617.