A chargeback is the return of funds to a customer, on request of their bank, in order to resolve a disputed payment.
Chargebacks can only occur after the Settlement of funds has taken place. Each chargeback transaction has a parenttransactionreference field that contains a reference to the original transaction.
Listed below are three common scenarios that may result in a chargeback:
- The customer was billed an incorrect amount.
- The customer claims to have never received goods or service as promised at the time of purchase.
- The customer did not authorise the purchase (e.g. because their card was stolen).
Process overview
- The customer disputes a settled transaction by contacting their bank.
- The customer’s bank authorises a chargeback and informs your acquiring bank of the situation. The disputed funds are returned to the customer.
- We receive details of a chargeback against a settled transaction and generate a CHARGEBACK transaction in our system, which is linked to the original AUTH. (We perform checks for chargebacks on a daily basis).
The request type of the transaction generated will be “CHARGEBACK”.
- Each chargeback is represented on our records as an independent transaction with a unique transaction reference.
- Chargebacks are shown with a settlestatus of 100 (“settled”).
Please be aware of the following
- The value of the parenttransactionreference field in a chargeback always refers to the original authorisation processed. The value of the settlestatus for this AUTH remains at 100.
- In some cases, a single payment may be subject to multiple CHARGEBACK requests. For further information, please contact your acquiring bank.
- Notifications of chargebacks are optional and you must contact our Support Team to activate this functionality on your account.
Disputing chargebacks
It may be possible for you to dispute a chargeback if you have reasonable cause for doubting the customer’s case (e.g. a customer claims a package was not delivered but the package was signed for). For any queries relating to chargebacks processed on your account, please contact your acquiring bank.
Reporting chargebacks
We provide two methods for keeping track of chargebacks processed on your account:
- Automated URL Notifications sent to a server of your choosing.
- MyST can be used to browse records of chargebacks.
Configuring URL notifications
We recommend that you configure automated notifications on your account when implementing payment types where chargebacks can occur. Please contact our Support Team for further information.
Viewing chargeback transactions in MyST
Transaction search page
Chargebacks processed against transactions on your site reference(s) can be viewed on the MyST “Transaction search” page.
- Click the “Stored searches” drop-down and select “Chargebacks”. (1)
- Choose the range of dates for the search, then click “Search”. (2)
After submitting a search, you will be presented with a list of Chargebacks that meet your search criteria:
Refer to our MyST documentation for further information on searching for transactions.
Transaction details page
Chargebacks can also be seen when viewing a transaction in MyST.
- Click the “Related transactions” tab, as shown below.
- Any Chargebacks processed against a payment will be shown under this tab.
Refer to our MyST documentation for further information on searching for transactions.
