Handling Payment Disputes and Chargebacks
Payment disputes and chargebacks are one of the most frustrating parts of selling online, or even in person. At any time, a credit card holder can tell their card issuer that they didn't authorize a charge on their credit card, and then all the cost and burden of the dispute falls back on you.
Why Do Disputes Happen?
It's so disheartening to put your love into an event just to have the charges disputed and fees pile up from chargebacks. There are a lot of reasons chargebacks can happen, and many of them are outside of your control. A few frequent reasons...
- attendees that don't realize chargebacks hurt the event and think they're the same as refunds
- scammers testing if stolen credit cards work with no intention of attending the event
- scammers buying and reselling tickets with stolen cards
- friends or family using each other's credit cards without permission
- well-meaning attendees that don't recognize your business name or remember the purchase
Dispute Workflow
When a card holder disputes a charge, we get a notice from your credit card processor and add it to your dashboard. You can review all of your disputes via the Reports > Payment Disputes menu.
Disputes go through various states like warning , lost and won . There are two important states you should note in particular: warning and needs_response .
Contacting the Card Holder
Your first step should always be to contact the card holder. They are able to cancel their chargeback which is the easiest way to get everything resolved. To cancel their chargeback they need to contact their card company again.
Even after a customer says they will cancel the chargeback, you should still respond to the dispute and include a copy of your messages with the customer showing that they agreed to cancel the dispute.
Dispute "Warnings"
Sometimes we get warnings from the credit card processors that a dispute is likely but hasn't been formally filed yet. In these cases it is often smart to proactively refund the charge, even if you're convinced it wasn't fraudulent. This is because most payment processors levy non-refundable charges on your for every dispute, and winning disputes is rarely guaranteed.
Disputes "Needing Response"
After a dispute has been formally filed you will have a chance to respond and provide "evidence" that you did right and that the dispute should be reversed.
We've provided prefilled PDFs and forms showing all the information we have to prove that the charge was legit, including showing that we checked verification codes, that the user downloaded the tickets, and even when and where the tickets were scanned. All of that information can help convince the card holder's credit card company that the charge was valid.
You can submit your dispute response via Reports > Payment Disputes . Be sure to add any extra info you might have, including records of your conversations with the purchaser.
And always submit dispute evidence, even if you don't add any more info. If you don' t respond the dispute is automatically resolved in the card holder's favour.
If you would like to know more, Stripe has some extensive information that you might find helpful: https://stripe.com/docs/disputes