The short version
- Your response window is short — commonly 7 to 21 days depending on the network and processor — and missing it is an automatic loss with no appeal.
- You submit once. Evidence cannot be edited or added afterwards, so assemble the whole file before you start.
- Evidence must rebut the reason code. Proof of delivery does nothing against an "I did not authorise this" claim, and authentication data does nothing against "it never arrived".
- Monitoring programmes count disputes, not outcomes. Winning the case still leaves the chargeback in your ratio — only preventing it removes it.
What a chargeback is, and why it is not a refund
A cardholder contacts their issuing bank rather than you. The bank reverses the payment, debits your acquirer, and your acquirer debits you — plus a fee that is not returned even if you win. Only then are you told. A refund is a decision you make; a chargeback is a decision made about you, and the route back is representment: you re-present the transaction with evidence and ask the issuer to reverse its own reversal.
The buyer's side of this differs by market. In the US, the Fair Credit Billing Act gives a cardholder at least 60 days from the statement to dispute a billing error on a credit card. In the UK, chargeback is not law at all — it is a card scheme rule, typically with a 120-day claim window — while Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes the card issuer jointly liable with the seller for credit card purchases over £100 and up to £30,000. A UK buyer therefore has two routes, and the one they pick changes what the bank asks you for.
The clock, and the deadline that ends the case
Four points, and you only control the first two
Enquiry
The cheapest window
The issuer asks a question before reversing anything. Answered here there is no chargeback, no fee and no effect on your ratio.
Notification
Your processor's clock starts
Commonly 7 to 21 days, and shorter than the network window. This is the deadline that actually binds you.
Submission
The file is fixed
No late filing and nothing added afterwards. Whatever is in the packet is the entire case.
Up to 3 months
The issuer decides
The chargeback fee is not returned even where the representment succeeds.
Evidence has to rebut the reason code
This is the single largest cause of avoidable losses. Every dispute arrives with a code that states a specific claim, and the reviewer is checking whether your file answers that claim. A complete, well-organised bundle aimed at the wrong claim loses to a thin bundle aimed at the right one.
| The claim | What actually rebuts it | What does nothing |
|---|---|---|
| Fraudulent — "I did not authorise this" | Link between the recipient and the cardholder: shipping address matching AVS, tracking and delivery, signature, purchase IP, device ID, account login history, prior undisputed orders on the same card | A refund policy, or a description of the product |
| Product not received | Carrier, tracking number, dispatch date, delivery confirmation to the address given — or evidence the agreed delivery date has not yet passed | Authentication data; proof the buyer is who they say they are was never in issue |
| Product unacceptable | The listing text and images as they appeared, evidence the item matched, any repair or replacement offered, and the communications | Proof of delivery, which the cardholder is not disputing |
| Credit not processed | The refund policy text, evidence of where and when the buyer saw it before paying, and why no refund is owed or that one was already issued | Tracking, unless the dispute turns on whether goods came back |
| Duplicate | The other charge ID, an explanation of the difference, and separate itemised receipts or packing lists for each | A general statement that your system does not double-charge |
| Subscription cancelled | The cancellation terms, proof they were shown and accepted, the account activity after the claimed cancellation date, and your cancellation records | The original signup receipt on its own |
Two categories should be accepted rather than fought. If the transaction really was fraud, contesting it costs a second fee and produces nothing. And some codes — Visa's 10.5 among them — are treated by the network as fraudulent by definition, with no evidence accepted at all.
A representment file the reviewer can actually read
Representment packet
What the issuer will and will not look at
The reviewer is a person with a queue, working inside a document your processor compiles and forwards. They will not leave it. That produces a set of hard constraints that most first-time responses violate.
- No external content. Links, downloads, tracking URLs, audio and video are ignored. Paste the tracking history in as text or an image.
- No invitations to make contact. "Call us for more details" reads as an absent argument.
- Hard size limits. Combined evidence is capped around 4.5 MB, with Mastercard submissions also limited to roughly 19 pages.
- One file per evidence type. Several screenshots of the same thing merge into one multi-page document rather than several attachments.
- Legibility over volume. A 40-page dump of raw logs loses to two annotated pages, because nothing in it is labelled as the part that answers the claim.
Compelling Evidence 3.0, and the one automatic win
Visa's Compelling Evidence 3.0 is the most valuable thing in this area and almost nobody uses it, because it depends on data you have to have collected months before the dispute existed. It applies to Visa reason code 10.4 — card-absent fraud, which is where most so-called friendly fraud lands. Where it qualifies, liability shifts and the issuer's discretion largely disappears.
The qualification test is mechanical. You need two prior transactions on the same card that were paid, undisputed, not validation charges, and dated between 120 and 364 days before the disputed one. Across the disputed transaction and both priors, the data must match on either two main elements, or one main and one secondary.
| Element | Class | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Customer purchase IP | Main | Captured at checkout — has to be stored per order |
| Device fingerprint or device ID | Main | Client-side collection at payment; only one of the two counts |
| Shipping address | Secondary | Order record |
| Customer email address | Secondary | Account or order record |
| Customer account ID | Secondary | Your own user identifier |
The consequence for engineering is simple and worth acting on before you need it: store the purchase IP and a device identifier against every order, permanently, and keep the customer account ID stable across orders. Without that, a returning customer who disputes a charge is indistinguishable from a stranger.
Terms of service template
Free full text. Billing, cancellation and acceptable-use terms drafted so that a bank reviewing a dispute can see what the customer agreed to and when.
How to put the response together
- 1
Read the cardholder's own words first
Networks often attach the issuer's submission, including a description from the cardholder. It frequently contradicts the reason code, and where it does, that contradiction is your strongest single argument.
- 2
Decide whether to fight at all
Countering costs a second fee. Genuine fraud, and cases where the buyer is plainly entitled to a refund, should be accepted. Contest the ones where the facts are on your side and you can document them.
- 3
Try to have it withdrawn
Contact the customer. A cardholder who accepts a replacement or a credit can withdraw the dispute, and evidence of that withdrawal is the cleanest possible outcome. Keep the correspondence — it is evidence either way.
- 4
Collect only what answers the code
Work from the reason code to the evidence list, not from what you happen to have. Anything that does not rebut the specific claim comes out of the bundle.
- 5
Write the cover argument last
One short paragraph naming the claim and pointing at the two documents that defeat it. Neutral, factual, no adjectives. It is the only part the reviewer is guaranteed to read.
- 6
Merge, label and submit once
One file per evidence type, inside the size and page limits, with nothing that requires clicking. Check it renders as a flat document, then submit — you will not get to change it.
Winning does not fix your ratio
This is the part that surprises people who have just spent a month getting good at representment. The card networks' monitoring programmes count disputes when they are raised. They do not wait for the outcome, and they do not subtract the ones you win. Refunding a customer before they disputed does not remove the chargeback from Mastercard's count either. The programmes are measuring how well you prevent disputes, not how well you argue them.
| Programme | Threshold | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Visa VAMP — disputes and fraud | A ratio of 0.5% marks an account non-compliant; 1.5% is excessive in most regions, with a minimum count applied alongside it | Fees assessed at the excessive tier and possibly below it, applied through your acquirer |
| Mastercard ECM | 100 to 299 chargebacks in a month and a rate of 1.5% to 2.99% | Fines begin in the second consecutive month and escalate; an issuer recovery assessment is added from month four |
| Mastercard HECM | 300 or more chargebacks and a rate of 3% or higher | The same escalation on a steeper schedule |
Which reframes the exercise. The highest-value work is upstream: a statement descriptor customers recognise, receipts sent on payment, honest dispatch times, an obvious cancellation route, and a refund policy shown at checkout rather than buried. Those are the same things a bank looks for in your evidence, which is not a coincidence — see what your refund policy has to offer and the click that makes terms binding.
When the money is worth more than the process
Representment is a form-filling exercise with a bank as its audience: no discovery, no hearing, no appeal, and on a small transaction the fees can exceed the sum at stake. Where the amount is large and the buyer is identifiable, remember that a chargeback reverses a payment without extinguishing what they owe you. That is a demand letter problem, not a card network one.
Sources
- Stripe — Respond to disputes
- Stripe — Dispute reason code categories and evidence guidelines
- Stripe — Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 requirements
- Stripe — Card network dispute and fraud monitoring programmes
- Cornell LII — Fair Credit Billing Act
- Financial Ombudsman Service — Goods and services bought on credit
- MoneySavingExpert — Section 75 credit card protection
General information, not legal advice. This guide explains how these documents and rules generally work. Law varies by jurisdiction and changes, and none of it is applied to your circumstances here. For anything consequential, consult a licensed attorney where you are.
Frequently asked
How long do I have to respond to a chargeback?
Commonly between 7 and 21 days from notification, depending on the card network and your processor, which usually sets a shorter internal deadline than the network allows. There is no extension and no late filing: if the deadline passes without a response, you lose the dispute and the funds automatically.
Can I add evidence after submitting?
No. Your response is forwarded to the issuing bank immediately and cannot be edited, supplemented or withdrawn. That is why the file has to be assembled in full before you start the submission, and why a missing document is fatal rather than inconvenient.
Does winning a chargeback remove it from my ratio?
No. Card network monitoring programmes count a dispute in the month it is raised and ignore the outcome entirely. They also count disputes on transactions you had already refunded. Only preventing the dispute keeps it out of the calculation, which is why prevention work matters more than representment skill.
What is friendly fraud, and can it be beaten?
It is a genuine purchase disputed as fraud, whether deliberately or because the cardholder did not recognise the charge. It usually arrives under a card-absent fraud code. The reliable defence is Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0, which needs two prior undisputed transactions on the same card between 120 and 364 days old, plus matching identity data across all three.
Should I refund a customer who has already filed a chargeback?
Generally not — refunding after a dispute risks paying twice, since the disputed funds have already been taken from you. The better route is to ask the cardholder to withdraw the dispute and to document that they agreed. Refunding before a dispute is filed is what prevents the whole sequence.