Respond to disputes

Learn the terminology and lifecycle of disputes.

Disputes in MoneyCollect Dashboard

You can find disputes in the MoneyCollect Dashboard. Each one includes all relevant information about the payment being disputed and the reason the cardholder reported it to the card issuer. When you receive a dispute, you can respond to it by submitting the appropriate evidence or accepting it.

When a dispute occurs, MoneyCollect receives a notification of the disputed payment and sends you an automated email. And you can also see a banner on the Home page reminding you how many disputes have not been responded to.

Home Page

This process creates a Dispute with the status needs_response.

Disputes in the Dashboard

Respond to disputes in the Dashboard

You can respond disputes within the MoneyCollect Dashboard. The Dashboard guides you through the submission process, step-by-step, automatically formatting the information you provide. You’re asked to provide different pieces of evidence and upload all necessary files, depending on the dispute reasons. These steps increase the likelihood of a dispute being found in your favor.

Request for information

Sometimes, the issuer will request more information about a transaction (also known as a retrieval request or soft chargeback). They may do this before raising a formal dispute, or use it instead of a dispute if they can no longer raise one because too much time has passed since the transaction. No money is taken from your account at this stage. You should provide the requested information to the issuer as quickly as possible. And, if you think the transaction being questioned is not valid, it's best to refund the customer to avoid the potential of a formal dispute being raised.

Inquiries and retrievals

Some card issuers may begin to investigate a payment before creating a chargeback, and request further information about the charge. Most card networks call these “retrievals," and American Express calls them “inquiries." These are common for American Express and Discover payments. Mastercard and Visa almost always create a chargeback immediately. To avoid an inquiry or retrieval becoming a chargeback, submit any required evidence or refund the payment in full. Refunding the payment marks the inquiry or retrieval as resolved and doesn’t incur a dispute fee.

Many inquiries and retrievals are the result of the cardholder not recognizing the transaction—providing basic information about your business and what was purchased is usually sufficient to close the case. However, if the cardholder refutes your evidence, or the card issuer considers it insufficient, the card issuer might escalate the inquiry or retrieval into a chargeback and reclaim the cardholder’s funds. It’s important to resolve the case while it’s still in the inquiry or retrieval stage, before it escalates. Regardless of which option you choose, it’s always best to reach out to your customer first to get more information about the reason for the inquiry or retrieval.

Chargeback

If the card issuer has chosen not to create an inquiry or retrieval, or is unsatisfied with the evidence, they create a chargeback. Unlike inquiries or retrievals, during a chargeback the issuer debits your account and holds the funds while processing the dispute. After the chargeback is created, you have a limited amount of time (usually 7–21 days) to respond with evidence. The time given varies depending on the card network.

If you don’t submit evidence by the time the deadline passes, the cardholder wins the dispute and keeps the funds.

If you submit evidence, it’s sent to the cardholder’s bank, which also has a limited amount of time (usually 60–75 days) to respond, which varies based on the card network. We will updates the status of the dispute as soon as the bank’s response is available, but that response is often not known until the deadline passes. The decision from the cardholder’s bank is the final step in the dispute process.

Pre-Arbitration

Pre-arbitration is the last chance for the merchant and the issuing bank to settle a chargeback before arbitration begins, at which point the card network steps in to make a final decision.

Arbitration

If you lost the dispute but you want to argue your case further, you can escalate the case to arbitration. But you should note the following points before considering it:

1. You can submit additional evidence at this stage (unless it is a Visa fraud or authorization dispute). Your evidence should show why the dispute is now resolved, or why the issuer’s argument for rejecting your case is invalid.

2. Arbitration can cost a lot to pursue and take a long time to resolve. The costs of arbitration may well outweigh the disputed amount.

Accepting disputes

You can accept a dispute, effectively agreeing with the cardholder that the dispute was valid for the reason given. Accepting a dispute isn’t considered an admission of wrongdoing and is sometimes the most appropriate response. The customer has already received their refund through the dispute process—if you agree with the refund, it’s best to accept the dispute. This is the action you should take if you don’t intend to respond and submit evidence. Although accepting disputes doesn’t negatively affect your business any further, it’s not a viable alternative to an effective refund or returns policy. Dispute activity is calculated based upon the disputes received, not won or lost, so dispute prevention is critical.

Accept disputes fromDisputes main page

Accept disputes from Dispute details page

Submitting evidence

If it is not appropriate to accept the dispute or work with your end-customer to withdraw the dispute, please follow these steps to enter the dispute process and submit your evidence:

You can only submit dispute evidence once. Make sure to provide all relevant information and review it carefully before you submit it. Your progress is automatically saved, so you can return to the submission process at a later time and review the evidence before submitting it.

1. Navigate to Dispute detailspage from your MoneyCollect dashboard. (The status of this dispute should be Open(Needs response).

2. Click Submit evidence button to submit evidence.

Dispute detailspage

3. Add Product or service details, Representment letter and Supporting documentson Submit dispute evidencepage.

Learn more about evidence submission ->

4. You can only submit evidence to the customer’s bank once. Make sure you have no more evidence to submit before clicking Submit button.

5.The status of this dispute changes to Reviewing and you can check the progress of the evidence you submitted by clicking View submission button from Dispute details page.

Dispute detailsPage

The progress of evidence you submitted

The evidence you submit should be appropriate for the reason for the dispute. Web logs, email communications, shipment tracking numbers and delivery confirmation, proof of prior refunds or replacement shipments, etc., can all help.

For example, a response to a dispute with the reason “product not received” should have evidence that includes shipping information and any screenshots of package tracking. We will electronically submits this information to your cardholder’s issuer and notifies you of any updates to the dispute.

We will automatically puts the evidence you provide into a format accepted by card issuers. This includes all mandatory payment information (e.g. amount, date of payment), CVC or postal code verification results (if available),and any additional information or documents that you provide. You can prepare a suitable response that has the most relevant evidence using the following best practices. Following them can help ensure you have the greatest possible chance of a dispute being found in your favor—and your funds returned:

• Keep your evidence relevant and to the point

• Provide clear and accurate evidence

• Include proof of service or delivery

• Include a copy of your terms of service and refund policy

• Formatting documents and images to upload

Keep your evidence relevant and to the point

Card issuers review thousands of dispute responses every day. A long introduction about your product or company, complaint about the customer, or the unfairness of the dispute isn’t going to make your responses more compelling. Instead, provide only the facts surrounding the original purchase, using a neutral and professional tone.

You can investigate the dispute while collecting evidence to submit. For example, you can take a look at Google Maps and Street View to see where your delivery took place, or check social media like Facebook or LinkedIn to help establish the customer as the legitimate cardholder.

Many merchants also include email correspondence or texts with the customer, but be aware that these exchanges don’t verify identity. If you’re going to include them, make sure to include only the relevant information (for example, if you’re going to include a long email thread, redact any text that only quotes previous emails).

Your evidence should be factual, professional, and concise. While providing little evidence is a problem, overwhelming the card issuer with unnecessary information can have the same effect.

Provide clear and accurate evidence

Card issuers don’t follow any links that you provide in a response. Instead, you must include a clear screenshot of your terms or policies as they appear during checkout or on your site if they’re an important part of your defense.

Include proof of service or delivery

In addition to fraudulent disputes, claims from cardholders that products or services never arrived or happened, were defective or unsatisfactory, or not as described are also potential dispute reasons. Assuming that all is well on your side (the product was not faulty, was as described, was shipped and delivered prior to the dispute date) then you’ll want to provide proof of service or delivery.

For a merchandise purchase, provide proof of shipment and delivery that includes the full delivery address, not just the city and postal code verification.

If your customer provides a “Ship to” name that differs from their own (e.g., a gift purchase), be prepared to provide documentation explaining why they’re different. While it’s common practice to purchase and ship to an address that doesn’t match the verified billing address for the card, this is an additional dispute risk.

If your business provides digital goods, include evidence such as an IP address or system log proving the customer downloaded the content or used your software or service.

Include a copy of your terms of service and refund policy

When it comes to disputes, fine print matters. When it comes to returns or refunds, it’s critical to provide proof that your customer agreed to and understood your terms of service at checkout, or didn’t follow your policies. A clean screenshot of how you present your terms of service or other policies during checkout is an important addition to your evidence—it’s not enough to include a text copy of these only.

Formatting documents and images to upload

Dispute evidence is often transmitted through several legacy systems and most card issuers are still faxing paper documents. Before sending your response, make sure 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 won’t be able to do so. The card issuer won’t consider any evidence that’s too small to transmit clearly, so it’s better to have large, full-page images than try to fit too many on one page.

Files you uploaded to supporting documents sections should have limitations on the acceptable file types and the combined file size.

*Upload up to 5 images in each section.

*Images must be in JPG, JPEG or PNG format with no greater than 2MB in size for each.

Escalating dispute to Arbitration

1. Navigate to Dispute detailspage from your MoneyCollect dashboard. (The status of this dispute should be Pre-arbitration(Needs response).

2. Click Arbitration button to escalate your dispute to Arbitration.

Dispute fees

When your business receives a dispute (also called a chargeback), the payment amount as well as a separate dispute fee levied by the card network will be deducted from your account balance.

Card networks apply this additional dispute fee to help protect cardholders and discourage dishonest or fraudulent business practices that could lead to chargebacks. The network fees for chargebacks are imposed regardless of whether you choose to dispute the chargeback, and regardless of the outcome of any given dispute.

Learn more about dispute handling fee in MC ->

Misunderstandings

For disputes that are the result of a misunderstanding, your customer can tell their card issuer that they no longer dispute the transaction. It’s still important that you submit evidence to show that the payment was valid, however, and to ensure that the card issuer knows you’re not accepting the dispute. In cases where you agree that the customer should keep the disputed funds, accept the dispute rather than ask the cardholder to withdraw the dispute for a regular refund. Remember, the card networks don’t consider how many disputes you win or lose, only how many you receive—a withdrawn dispute still counts as a dispute.

Disputes on partially refunded payments

While uncommon, a customer can dispute a payment for the full amount even if they’ve already received a partial refund (e.g., a refund of a smaller amount that has been agreed upon). We understand this can be frustrating😭 as it leaves you responsible for the partial refund you’ve already processed and the full amount disputed, though card issuers are very willing to rectify this situation.

Even if you plan to accept the unrefunded portion of the dispute, it’s important for you to provide evidence of the partial refund in your response. This should include the amount and date of the refund, and even a screenshot of the refund information from your Dashboard.