Disputes / Chargebacks

Use Hyperswitch's unified Disputes module to track and manage disputes across multiple processors

A dispute occurs when a customer contacts their payment method issuer (card issuer/bank/wallet) to question or challenge a particular transaction so that the payment can be reversed.

When a card payment is reversed, and the processor debits the merchant's account, it's termed a 'chargeback.' Hyperswitch uses the term 'Disputes' interchangeably to refer to 'Chargebacks' in the context of card payments.

The merchants receive notifications from their payment processor when a dispute is raised by their customers against a payment made at their site.

After receiving a dispute notification, merchants are given an opportunity to provide evidence or documentation to support their side of the transaction. The resolution can involve a chargeback, where the funds are reversed from the merchant's account and returned to the cardholder, or a decision in favor of the merchant if the dispute is deemed invalid.

Each processor has their own standards or processes around how they notify about disputes and how merchants can challenge/accept them and thus it becomes cumbersome for a merchant using multiple processors to manage disputes across different processors on their own.

Hyperswitch unifies all the dispute notifications from all your different processors and makes it easier for you to track, accept and as well as challenge them by uploading evidences across different processors from one place.

Disputes Lifecycle on Hyperswitch

Hyperswitch's unified disputes module uses the following stages and statuses to track your disputes:

Pre-Dispute stage

Some payment method issuers start an investigation before creating a dispute on a transaction challenged by a customer. Such transactions are grouped under the 'Pre-Dispute' stage and these transactions could go through the following states:

dispute_state	description
Opened	Occurs when an investigation is opened and a dispute is created on Hyperswitch
Challenged	Occurs when a merchant uploads evidence to support the original transaction
Expired	Occurs when a merchant doesn't respond in time or if the investigation is closed

Visa or Mastercard do not open an investigation before creating a dispute and so most of your transactions would skip the Pre-Dispute stage

Dispute stage

In most cases, the processors directly debit your account while reversing the payment made by a customer after a transaction has been challenged.

For transactions that go through 'Pre-Dispute' stage, they will end up moving to 'Dispute' stage if the merchant's evidence was deemed not satisfactory.

dispute_state	description
Opened	Occurs when a dispute is opened and your processor has debited your account
Challenged	Occurs when a merchant uploads an evidence to support their case
Expired	Occurs when a merchant doesn't respond in time interval before which an issuer expects a response after the dispute was opened
Cancelled	Occurs when a customer withdraws their challenge
Accepted	Occurs when a merchant accepts a dispute as valid
Won	Occurs when the merchant's challenge was accepted successfully. Known as 'chargeback reversal' in cases of card payments
Lost	Occurs when a merchant's challenge was deemed not satisfctory

Pre-Arbitration stage

Even after a successful dispute challenge, a payment method issuer might deem the evidence 'not satisfactory' and raise another review appeal. Such payments transition to 'Pre-Arbitration' stage.

dispute_state	description
Opened	Occurs when the issuer opens a review appeal after deeming the evidence unsatisfactory
Won	Occurs when the merchant is successful in the pre-arbitration appeal prcoess
Lost	Occurs when the merchant loses during the pre-arbitration appeal. Also, known as 'second_chargeback'

Managing Disputes on Hyperswitch through Dashboard

1. Viewing Disputes on Hyperswitch dashboard

You can view all your disputes by going to Operations -> Disputes section on your Hyperswitch dashboard

2. Generating Dispute Reports:

'Generate Reports' button here will generate a report containing details of all your disputes

3. Viewing a Dispute

Clicking one of the dispute will take you to a page where you can see further information about the particular dispute

4. Accepting/Challenging a Dispute

This feature is currently not present in Hyperswitch. Request for this feature here.