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Split chargebacks

Learn how to handle the disputed amount during a chargeback.

If a payment is reversed by a customer of your user, and the issuer has started a dispute process, Adyen withdraws the disputed funds from your marketplace's liable balance account. This transaction is called a chargeback.

You can either accept the chargeback on behalf of your user, or ask them to supply defense documents and upload them to Adyen.

Requirements

If your marketplace can already process online payments, there are no special requirements for handling chargebacks.

Chargeback events

If the chargeback is defended successfully, or the customer repays the funds, Adyen transfers the funds back to your marketplace's liable balance account. This transaction is called a chargeback reversal.

If the issuing bank declines the material submitted during defense of the original chargeback, the disputed amount is deducted from your marketplace's liable balance account again. This transaction is called a second chargeback.

This means that during the dispute process, the entire disputed amount is debited (chargeback or second chargeback) or credited (chargeback reversal) to your marketplace's liable balance account.

You can change this behavior by booking the disputed amount to any of the balance accounts in your marketplace, or even splitting it between the accounts.

Chargeback logic

You can choose between three different ways to handle potential chargeback events:

  • Book the full disputed amount to your marketplace's liable balance account.
  • Book the full disputed amount to one of your user's balance accounts.
  • Book different amounts to different balance accounts, according to the split ratio defined in the splits array of your /payments or /sessions request.

You can define the chargeback logic on two levels:

  • Balance platform level: Set a default logic to handle all chargeback events. Contact our Support Team to configure a default logic on balance platform level. If you choose the logic that deducts the amount from a single balance account, you must specify the balance account from which you want to deduct all chargebacks that occur on your marketplace.
  • Payment level: Set a logic for each payment. The chargeback event handling logic you set at payment level overrides any default logic set at balance platform level.

If you decide to set the chargeback logic on a payment level, you can do so in your payment or capture request. The chargeback logic sent in a capture request overrides the logic you specified in your payment request.

Configure the chargeback logic for a payment

To configure the logic for a potential chargeback:

  1. Make a /payments, /sessions, or /payments/{paymentPspReference}/captures request.

  2. Depending on how you want to handle the chargeback, include the following parameters and values in the platformChargebackLogic object.

    Parameter Required Description
    behavior Required The method of handling potential chargebacks.
    Possible values:
    • deductFromLiableAccount: Deducts the full amount from your marketplace's liable balance account.
    • deductFromOneBalanceAccount: Deducts the full amount from the balance account specified in targetAccount.
    • deductAccordingToSplitRatio: Deducts the funds according to the split ratio defined in the splits array.
    targetAccount Conditionally required Required if behavior is deductFromOneBalanceAccount
    The ID of the balance account to which the disputed amount is booked.
    costAllocationAccount The ID of the balance account to which you want to book the fees incurred by the chargeback.
  3. Listen to the CHARGEBACK webhooks to get notified when a chargeback occurs in your marketplace.

Troubleshooting

The API request validates only the format of the split instructions, not the balance accounts specified in the request. This means that even if the transaction is successful, it is possible that the funds are not credited to/deducted from the specified balance account. If the balance account does not exist, or it is linked to an account holder with a closed status, the full transaction and its fees are booked to your marketplace's liable balance account.

To correct the balances, you can transfer the funds between the balance accounts in your marketplace.

Use cases

The following tabs show you examples of the different ways to handle chargebacks in a payment or capture request.

Track fund movements

To track the status of the fund transfers initiated by a chargeback:

  1. Listen to the following webhooks:
  2. Acknowledge the webhooks. We send these webhooks for every split item in the payment.
  3. In the balancePlatform.transfer.updated webhook payload, note that the event array includes all previous transfer events, and the sequenceNumber defines the number of webhooks sent for the transfer, including the current one.

Webhook examples

The following examples show the webhooks you receive for a chargeback. We send webhooks for each balance account involved in the chargeback, and each split of the disputed amount.

Reports

In the Balance Platform Accounting Report, the chargeback fee type is indicated before the transfer description, which matches the description of the original payment.

See also