Disputes
Last updated: June 5, 2024
Disputes (also known as chargebacks) are a challenging but inevitable part of ecommerce. They arise when a customer queries a transaction with their card issuer. The issuer creates a formal dispute which immediately reverses the payment, debiting your account for both the payment amount and a dispute fee.
The Dashboard allows you to monitor and respond to disputes quickly and easily.
Information
This page explains how to manage disputes in the Dashboard, but you can also use our Disputes API.
| Step | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
1 | Payment disputed | Your customer disputes the payment. This status does not show in the Dashboard but is the starting point of all disputes. The only financial repercussion at this stage is a fee being applied. |
2a | Evidence required | An action on your side is required (you need to respond to the dispute). At this stage, your account gets debited the disputed amount. |
2b | Resolved | We automatically resolve the dispute because it had already been refunded previously. There are no further financial implications. |
3a | Evidence under review | You have submitted evidence to defend against the dispute. Your evidence is now under review by our Disputes team. Once reviewed, the team will send it to the card scheme for review. No further action is required on your side. |
3b | Expired | The time limit to take action is met. There is no further implication and you can’t respond to the dispute anymore. |
3c | Accepted | You have accepted the dispute. There is no further implication or action required. |
3d | Canceled | The dispute is canceled by the issuing bank and your account is credited back the amount of the dispute. You don’t need to take any further action. |
4a | Lost | The issuing bank has rejected your evidence and you have lost the dispute. There are no further financial implications. |
4b | Won | The issuing bank has accepted your evidence and you have won the dispute. Your account has been credited back of the amount of the dispute. |
The Payments > Processing > Disputes section of the Dashboard displays two tabs:
- Unanswered: this tab contains all disputed payments for which an action is required.
- All disputes: this tab contains all payments that have been disputed, including unanswered ones.
Each tab shows the following information:
- Disputed amount
- Currency (as a 3-letter ISO code)
- Status (see above for more information)
- Reason for the dispute
- Payment ID
- Reference
- Initiated on
- Expiry date (in the Unanswered tab)
- Date last updated (in the All disputes tab)
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In the All disputes tab, you can:
- filter by date range based on the Updated on date
- filter by Payment ID, Dispute ID, Sub-entity ID, ARN, Reference (exact match)
Payments listed in the Payments > Processing > All Payments section of the Dashboard have a Status column. Disputed payments display a DISPUTED label, as well as the dispute's current status. For example, EVIDENCE REQUIRED.
If a customer has made a retrieval request (meaning their bank has asked you for details of the transaction to validate it), the relevant payment will have a RETRIEVAL REQUESTED label.
If you have a payment with a retrieval request against it, you can contact our Disputes team at [email protected] to respond to it, or you can refund the payment directly from your Dashboard to avoid a chargeback.
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You can search for a dispute using its payment ID, dispute ID, or any other filter relevant in the page, such as a reference or the customer's email.
Select any disputed payment listed under Payments > Processing > Disputes or Payments > Processing > All Payments to bring up the payment details, where you can:
- view the latest status of the payment
- view the dispute details
- download the dispute's scheme case files
Note
Scheme case details are only available for Visa disputes.
If a dispute has the status EVIDENCE REQUIRED, you can respond by either accepting it or challenging it and submitting evidence. You can see how long you've got left to respond to any dispute by looking under the Expires in column in the Unanswered tab.
In the Payments > Processing > Disputes screen, select a disputed payment to see the payment details.
- Accept: If you think the dispute is legitimate, because, for example, you know the transaction is fraudulent, select Accept dispute. You don’t have to do anything else; the funds will already have been debited from your account.
- Challenge: If you want to defend against the dispute, because you have evidence that the transaction is valid, select Submit evidence. This will take you to the disputes form where you can upload your evidence.
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If a payment has multiple disputes raised against it, you will be asked to select the ID of the particular dispute you want to answer. Make sure you are submitting evidence to the right dispute.
The evidence you submit should be relevant to the reason for the dispute and adhere to the schemes' file requirements. To help, we outline the recommended evidence for the particular dispute you’re responding to. Alternatively, select General to see all the evidence types you can upload.
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Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 enables you to submit historical transaction data as evidence. For more information, see What is Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0? in the Risk management section of our Support Center.
To submit your evidence:
- Upload your files in either JPEG, PDF, or PNG format.
- For each file you upload, select what type of evidence it is.
- If at any point you want to save your progress and come back to the form later, select Save and continue later. You, or another user, can then pick up where you left off.The dispute status will remain
EVIDENCE REQUIRED. - If you’ve uploaded all the evidence you want to, select Submit evidence.
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You can only upload one file per type of evidence, but you don’t have to submit every evidence type to complete the form.
Once you’ve submitted your evidence, the form will be sent for review and the dispute’s status will change to EVIDENCE UNDER REVIEW.
To track the dispute's status, go to the All disputes tab in the Payments > Processing > Disputes page.
You can analyze the evidence you submitted for previous disputes to determine what type of evidence is more likely to result in winning similar disputes.
To view and download the evidence you submitted, select the View submitted evidence option on the Payments > Processing > All Payments > Payment details page.