What is a Dispute?

A dispute (also known as a chargeback) occurs when a cardholder questions your payment with their card issuer. The issuer creates a formal dispute which immediately reverses the payment. The payment amount, along with a separate dispute fee levied by the card network, is then deducted from your account balance.

There is a dispute resolution process through which you can respond and submit evidence to make your case that the payment was valid. If the dispute is found in your favor, the disputed amount and fee is returned back to you. If a dispute is upheld, the card issuer’s decision is final, and the cardholder’s payment remains refunded.

• Effective customer communication - respond promptly to all enquiries, clear your spam folder regularly. And ensure your customers know that this is a subscription (clear advertising), and offer a link to refund or cancellation policy so they can use this method, rather than raising a dispute
• Process Refunds Immediately
• Customer service Contact info is easy for your customers to find
• Clear Refund and Cancellation Policy
• Use a recognizable name for your statement descriptor (this shows on the customer’s credit card statement next to charge). This can be set or updated in your account settings. It is recommended to use your website domain or business name. This helps avoid customer confusion when they look at their statement.
• Stripe’s machine learning system continuously monitors all payments processed by users. In rare cases, you may receive a notification from Stripe that a payment is suspected of being fraudulent after it has already been processed, contact the customer to check. If you have any concerns about the payment after reviewing it, we recommend refunding it immediately. This action immediately refunds it so it cannot then be disputed.
• Be very clear with your advertising of products, mention that it is a subscription product, subscription period, price per period (not price per day, etc.).
• Product names that are not bound by a time frame – instead of “12-week Transformation”, could name product “Lifestyle Transformation”. Sometimes customers think that they are paying for 12 weeks only and are surprised to be charged again. However, if you do not mention a time frame in the product name, this can eliminate that confusion.

There is a limited period of time that disputes can be responded to (usually 7-21 days)—the amount of time available is provided within the dispute information. After that time has passed, no further responses or evidence can be submitted. Once you have submitted a response, it generally takes the card issuer 60-75 days to reach a final decision.

Dispute evidence can only be submitted once. The evidence you submit should be appropriate to the reason for the dispute. Make sure to provide all relevant information and review it carefully before you submit it. If you're not ready to submit the evidence you've collected so far, click Save for later. You can return to the submission process at a later time and review the evidence you've provided before submitting it.

Dispute evidence is often transmitted through several legacy systems and most card issuers are still utilizing paper faxing. Before sending your response, ensure that any text or images are clear and large enough to show up clearly in a black and white fax transmission.

While you can zoom in on your electronic documents, the card issuer will not be able to do so. Any evidence that is too small to transmit clearly won’t be considered by the card issuer, so it’s better to have large, full-page images than try to fit too many on one page.

When submitting documents or images as evidence, use the following recommendations to make sure they can remain legible:

•      Use a 12-point font or larger

•      Ensure that documents are US Letter or A4 size, in portrait orientation (screenshots can still be added to your documents in landscape orientation)

•      Use bold text, callouts, or arrows to draw attention to pertinent information

•      Avoid using color highlighting

•      When uploading screenshots:

•      Crop the screenshot to the area of interest and circle any key components (e.g., delivery confirmation or signature)

•      Use the text fields in the dispute evidence form to describe what the image contains and how it supports your response

•      Any illegible text or data that is submitted with a response will be considered incomplete by the card issuer and not reviewed.

Once you’ve submitted a response, the dispute’s status is changed to under review. If a dispute is found in your favor, this changes to won. If the card issuer upholds the cardholder’s dispute, the status changes to lost. You will be emailed the outcome of the dispute.