I don't believe that's true. Under the present set of rules, if the merchant has a chip enabled terminal and the chip is used for the transaction, the merchant does not eat the transaction. If the merchant does not have a chip enabled terminal and the charge is done through a card swipe, the merchant eats the transaction.
Here's an article about it.
Under Federal law, the consumer can only be charged for $50 of a fraudulent transaction, and since that's so small, the card companies don't charge it back to the consumer. If the charge is made via phone or Internet and the card is not present, the consumer is not liable for any of the transaction cost. In other words, if all they stole was your card number, you're off the hook.
Mike
[BTW, fraud is much less in Europe because they use a chip card and PIN. Here in the US, the card companies decided not to use a PIN because they were afraid people would not be able to remember the PIN, and would therefore use another card, perhaps with a PIN they could remember. The chip plus PIN is very secure when making a charge with the card present. Even if someone stole your card, they could not make a purchase without knowing the PIN. Of course, the scammers would then just go to online purchases where the card is not present.]