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Disputes 101

An overview of how disputes work

Erik Dreyer avatar
Written by Erik Dreyer
Updated over a week ago

A dispute (also known as a chargeback, inquiry, or retrieval) occurs when a customer (or the cardholder) questions a payment on an invoice with their card issuer (usually a bank). To process a chargeback, the card issuer creates a formal dispute, which immediately reverses the payment. The payment amount, along with a separate $15 USD Stripe Dispute Fee, is then deducted from your account balance.

How Disputes Work

Disputes work differently across card networks, but typically follow similar patterns.

The dispute process involves multiple parties. Although Goodshuffle doesn’t decide the outcome of the dispute, we do convey your evidence to our financial partners. Our financial partners then pass your evidence to the card issuers.

Once the card issuer reviews the evidence and makes a final decision, we communicate the decision to you.


IMPORTANT:

Goodshuffle does not decide who wins or loses a dispute. We work with you to compile evidence and submit it to the proper financial partners and card issuers.


Timeline

During a dispute 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.

Once evidence is submitted, 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. Goodshuffle 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.

If you win a dispute, the disputed amount that was held by the card issuer is sent back to your account. If you lose a dispute, the money is returned to the customer.

Identifying Disputes

Email notifications are automatically sent out to the recipients listed below based on the activity listed below:

Activity

Email Recipients

A dispute/inquiry is created

Evidence due reminders

Evidence has been submitted

Dispute/inquiry status update (won, lost, or accepted)

Account owner

Sales lead on project

Anyone in a sales role on the project

Clicking any of the hyperlinks included in these notifications will take you to certain areas of Goodshuffle Pro with relevant information (e.g. the project, the client record, etc).

You can also see a list of disputes on your dashboard by clicking the Disputes tab of Payment Notifications box. This will display a list of all your disputes along with other dispute-related information including:

  • Dispute reason

  • Project name

  • Dispute date

  • Evidence due date (if evidence has not been disputed)

  • The amount disputed

  • Dispute status

Finally, if you run a Payment Journal, you will see a list of disputes towards the bottom of each report.

Dispute Statuses

Dispute statues vary by type. There are Inquiries / Retrievals and there are Disputes (chargebacks).

An Inquiry / Retrieval is nothing more than the bank requesting for more information about the charge, which may escalate to a chargeback. Those statues are:

  • Inquiry / Warning - the bank is asking for more information from you to decide whether or not to pursue a dispute.

  • Under Review (Warning) - the bank is reviewing the evidence that has been submitted.

  • Closed (Warning) - the bank has closed the inquiry. If the bank has escalated it to a Dispute, you will receive a separate notification.

Disputes (chargebacks) are when a cardholder questions your payment with their card issuer. Dispute statuses include:

  • Needs Response - evidence has not yet been submitted to the banks for review.

  • Under Review - the banks have the evidence and are reviewing it prior to making their ruling

  • Lost - the bank has determined that the client is owed the money.

  • Won - the bank has determined that you are owed the money and releases the funds.

Winning A Dispute

When you win a dispute Goodshuffle Pro will send you an email and automatically send funds to your account via a Dispute Reversal. A record of the Dispute Reversal can be found with the project's billing tab where the dispute originated, in a company activity report that spans the date of the dispute reversal, or in a company activity report that spans the date funds were paid out to your bank.

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