Chargebacks 101
for ecom.

1. What a chargeback is

A customer disputes a card payment with their bank. The bank reverses it, and the money, usually plus a fee, comes out of your store.

1. The customer disputes the charge with their bank, not with you.
2. The bank files a reason code, like Visa 10.4, card-absent fraud.
3. Your processor takes the money back, usually with a dispute fee on top.
4. You respond, or accept. Responding with evidence is called representment.
5. The bank decides. Your processor passes your evidence along.

2. One chargeback, three losses

• The sale: gone.
• The product you shipped, and the shipping: gone.
• A dispute fee: on top.

Won or lost, a dispute counts toward your dispute rate (Stripe).

Worked example: a $120 jacket, disputed as never received. Lose, and you're out $135 (with a $15 fee), plus the jacket and the shipping. Fees vary by processor and country: Shopify Payments, for example, charges a $15 USD chargeback fee in the United States. Try the chargeback fee calculator with your own numbers.

3. Two clocks, and yours is short

• The customer's window: typically 120 days from the payment (Stripe). Some claims start later or run longer.
• Your window to respond: usually 7 to 21 days at Stripe, depending on the network. American Express gives 20 days.

Work to the deadline your processor shows, and submit at least 2 days early so uploads can be fixed. Miss it and the dispute is lost by default.

4. The bank decides

The cardholder's bank decides, under card-network rules. Your processor passes your evidence along and moves the money. Later stages, like arbitration, go to the card network.

Stripe says issuers usually take 60 to 75 days to weigh the evidence, and the whole dispute typically runs 2 to 3 months. No software can promise a win.

5. What to do when one lands

1. Read the reason code, not just the customer's story. It decides the evidence you need: see the evidence checklist.
2. Decide: fight or accept. Weigh the amount, your evidence and the cost of responding.
3. Fight with proof: a short letter that answers the claim, plus the records that prove each point.
4. Accept the unwinnable fast, such as a genuine duplicate charge.
5. Don't refund once it's open. A refund on top of the chargeback can mean paying twice.

Stop the next one before it starts

• Your store's name on customers' card statements, so they recognize the charge (a clear merchant descriptor).
• Fast refunds when the customer is right.
• Order screening before you ship.
• 3-D Secure on risky orders.
• Acting on early fraud warnings.

Answer it with AI, from your records

Verdikx is AI chargeback protection for ecom. Its AI drafts each dispute response from your store's records, following the reason-code playbook. You review it before it's sent, or Autopilot (Growth and up) submits it inside limits you set, where the processor allows it.

• Every dispute and its deadline in one queue.
• Risky Shopify orders held after they're placed and before they ship (Growth and up). You decide what happens next.
• Risk scores from signals and rules, with the reasons in plain English.

Banks decide disputes, and Verdikx never invents evidence. Every plan has a 7-day free trial; see pricing. For the deeper guides in order, follow the Chargebacks 101 learning path.