Manage disputes

After you receive a chargeback you can either accept it, or defend it.

Requirements

If you want to defend a dispute, you should:

Have a general understanding of disputes.
Have an understanding of how disputes work for specific schemes. For more information, see the chargeback guidelines.
Make sure that your defense meets the requirements for the specific dispute reason code.
Submit the required documents before the deadline, as can be seen in the dispute time frames for the specific dispute reason code.

Video tutorial

For a quick overview of how to manage disputes, you can watch a video here:

View disputes

View a dispute to get more information about it, and decide whether to accept or defend it.

Log in to your Adyen Customer Area.
Select a merchant account.
Go to Revenue & risk > Disputes.
Select the Dispute Psp Reference.
This shows you the information relating to the dispute.

If a dispute is invalid, the Adyen auto-defense is triggered. When a dispute is defendable you have an option to accept or upload defense material. Some disputes are not open for defense, check our FAQ for the possible reasons.

Accept disputes

Accept the dispute to avoid a lengthy (and possibly costly) dispute process, especially if you agree with the dispute, for example, if the transaction is known to be fraudulent.

You may want to accept the dispute if:

Your supporting documents do not satisfy the defense document requirements.
The transaction amount is not high enough to spend resources on compelling evidence.
The transaction amount does not outweigh the risk of losing the chargeback fee for the second booked chargeback.
The transaction is known to be fraudulent.
The shopper has returned the goods, or you have failed to deliver the goods.

You can accept the chargeback in your Adyen Customer Area. Once you accept, and the defense period has expired, the final status will be Lost and the dispute cycle ends. To indicate that you have accepted, the journal line DisputeDefensePeriodEnded will be booked.

Defending disputes

Defend disputes where you have evidence that the transaction is valid, or the transaction amount is high. If you defend the chargeback, the dispute will move through the entire cycle which will be a lengthy, and possibly costly, process.

A chargeback fee is charged for every booked chargeback. Therefore, we strongly advise you to only defend a chargeback when you have sufficient compelling evidence.

You are allowed to upload defense documents at the following stages:

Request for Information stage.
the 1^st chargeback stage.

For the defense material to qualify, you must upload it within the given time frame and it should meet the requirements of the reason code.

You will generally defend a dispute when:

You have enough compelling evidence based on the chargeback reason code.
The transaction amount is high.

Upload your documents to the dispute details page in a PDF, JPG, or TIFF file. Make sure that your defense documents do not contain sensitive data. Adyen will refuse defense material that contains data such as copies of passports, social security numbers, tax records, unrelated legal documents, Primary Account Numbers (PAN), and sensitive authentication data. After you upload the files, the journal line InformationSupplied will be booked, and the status of the dispute will change. If the dispute is in the Request for Information stage, the status changes to Responded. If the dispute is in the chargeback stage, the status changes to Pending.

Your rebuttal is reviewed by an employee of the bank (and by the card scheme later in the dispute process). You must include valid arguments to prove that you have delivered the service. For more guidance, see Defense requirements.

If you need further advice or template documents for crafting your rebuttal, contact us via email.

Adyen Auto-defense for disputes

Adyen will automatically dispute applicable chargebacks with no action needed on your part. Typically, only disputes on payments made with credit or debit cards can be auto-defended. Disputed payments made with alternative payment methods and disputes that have to be defended at the RFI stage cannot be auto-defended.

Examples of chargebacks that can be auto-defended include:

Already refunded transactions for which the refund occurred before the chargeback was sent.
Chargebacks with a fraud reason code for which there was a liability shift. This includes, for example, 3D Secure payments but does not include payments made with digital wallets.
Chargebacks that include technical errors that invalidate them. For example when a chargeback is sent outside the time frame allowed by the schemes.
Chargebacks not applicable to your MCC code.