MasterCard Rewards for Capturing a Card

The acquirer may pay the merchant reward for capturing a MasterCard card in accordance with local practices. The acquirer must follow these Standards when paying a reward:

• Pay no less than $50 to the merchant capturing a card listed on the Electronic Warning Bulletin file or in the Warning Notice.
• Pay the merchant $100, if a merchant initiates an authorization call because of a suspicious transaction or captures a card not listed in the Electronic Warning Bulletin file or in the Warning Notice.
• Pay a reward to a financial institution for the capture of another issuer's card if it is the acquirer's practice to pay its tellers rewards for picking up its own cards. The amount of the reward should be the same amount paid for the capture of the acquirer's own cards.
• Charge the issuer for reimbursement of the reward paid upon dispatching each captured card. The Fee Collection / 1740 message with an IPM message reason code (data element 25) equal to 7601 will settle the reward.

Reward Amounts

The acquirer should follow these guidelines for determining reward amounts.

IF the capture…	THEN pay this amount…
Resulted from a “Merchant Suspicious” phone call	$ 100
Did not result from a “Merchant Suspicious” phone call	$50
Leads to the capture of additional cards	$ 50 for each card captured, with a maximum total of $250 for any one incident

The recovering member bank may collect an administrative fee of $15 for expenses incurred in processing the captured card. The capturing member may add this fee to the amount of the reward reimbursement or collect the fee independently, using the Fee Collection / 1740 message.

Reimbursement of Rewards

The following specifications apply to reward reimbursement:

• Upon returning the card to the issuer, the acquirer will obtain reimbursement for the reward paid and the $15 fee by processing the Fee Collection / 1740 message.
• If an acquirer returns a card to an issuer and a reward is not paid, the acquirer may collect a $15 fee by processing a Fee Collection / 1740 message record.
• Upon receipt of the Interchange Card Recovery Form (ICA-6), the issuer should match it to the Fee Collection / 1740 message record based on the acquirer member ID, account number, and recovery date comparisons.
• If an exempt member has an electronic reward payment processed, clearing receives the record by an information slip. The transaction is part of the Net Settlement System for settlement purposes.