In this episode of Fraudology, host Karisse Hendrick provides a comprehensive debrief following the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) Vegas conference. Karisse shares her highlights and lowlights from one of the industry's biggest events, cutting through the conference hype to provide practical insights for fraud and payments professionals.

The conversation explores the evolving mechanics of Agentic AI in commerce, detailing how tools like Sardine are now identifying AI agents by monitoring "invisible" behaviors, such as fields being filled without mouse movement. Karisse provides an inside look at why OpenAI recently shelved its "instant checkout" feature, moving away from being a merchant of record to avoid the liability of chargebacks and complex transaction enablement.

We also explore the "hot topics" dominating the fraud landscape today:

The VAMP Threshold "Cliff": How Visa is drastically reducing high-risk merchant ratios from 220 basis points to 150 basis points this April, potentially catching many enterprise merchants off guard.
The Complexity of Agentic Chargebacks: Real-world examples of "authorized" AI purchases where merchants are losing disputes because card brands like Visa do not yet have established "compelling evidence" protocols for AI agents.
The Human Element vs. AI: Why senior fraud leadership cannot be replaced by LLMs, as the critical "domain expertise" required to manage sophisticated fraud is not found in open-source data.

Beyond the Hype: Agentic AI, VAMP Ratios, and Post-MRC Realities