Chargebacks happen when your customers contact their credit card issuers or banks to dispute transactions they have paid.

Chargebacks can be the result of a misunderstanding or error. They could also be a result of credit card fraud made with stolen credit cards. Whatever the reason, it's best to work with your customers in figuring out what happened and settling their differences.

If your customer does issue a chargeback, the cardholder’s credit card issuer or bank will typically refund the transaction immediately. Once the dispute has been made, you will receive an email from Stripe that includes all of the related details. Stripe will then deduct the disputed amount plus a chargeback fee from your account the day after a dispute was filed. You can see all related activity from your Stripe dashboard.

You will be able to submit evidence of the transaction. In instances where you win the chargeback dispute, the disputed amount and the chargeback fee will be refunded to your bank account.

Unfortunately, once a transaction has been disputed, there’s no way for you to refund the paid invoice. By disputing the transaction, your customer has already received the amount paid back from their bank. So, if you agree with the decision to not fight the dispute, there is no need to take any further action.

Managing Chargebacks

1. Talk to your customers and understand why the chargeback happened
2. If you’ve talked to your customer and they confirm the chargeback was a mistake and agree to drop the dispute, have your customer call their bank and let them know they want the chargeback canceled
3. Collect all related documents: invoices, emails, signed agreements, correspondence, photographs, etc.
4. After the customer requests the dispute to be canceled, submit all of the related evidence to their bank
   • Your evidence should indicate to the bank that your customer wishes to drop the dispute, and must include any email evidence you have where the customer says that
   • If your customer had specific complaints that led to the dispute, be sure to address those in the evidence and include all related documents
   • Failing to provide evidence could still result in you losing the dispute
5. Log into your Stripe dashboard
6. Within the ‘Disputes’ section, click on the disputed transaction and open it
7. Upload any evidence related to the dispute
8. Click on Submit evidence

For more information on how to manage your disputes through Stripe, check out this article.