Disputed charges, or chargebacks, are forced transaction reversals that are initiated by the cardholder’s bank. They’re meant to serve as a consumer protection mechanism.

The dispute resolution process requires that you either accept or challenge the claim. To challenge a dispute case, you can submit evidence to make your case that the payment was valid.

In this guide, we’ll cover: 

• Explaining disputes
• Avoiding disputed charges
• Accepting a disputed charge
• Preparing evidence to challenge a disputed charge
• Challenging a disputed charge
• Understanding inquiries and retrievals
• Handling disputes on partially refunded payments

Explaining disputes

A dispute occurs when a cardholder questions your payment with their card issuer. Cardholders may dispute charges for several different reasons, but they all fall into one of the following categories:

• Credit not processed
• Duplicate
• Fraudulent
• General
• Product not received
• Product unacceptable
• Subscription canceled
• Unrecognized

Note: For more information about dispute reasons, see Preparing evidence to challenge a disputed charge.

When a cardholder contacts their bank to dispute a charge, the bank files a formal dispute with our processor. When this happens, we'll reach out to you via email to let you know what actions are required from you to complete the dispute resolution process.

If a formal dispute is created, the original transaction amount, along with a $15 dispute processing fee charged by the cardholder's bank, will be withheld from your Online Payments account balance. In the event that your Online Payments balance doesn’t have sufficient funds to cover the disputed amount and fee, the difference will be withdrawn from your connected bank account immediately.

Note: AutoPay is automatically disabled for any clients who have a dispute. This is done to give you time to respond to the dispute and so that you can have the most control over managing their billing. Once the dispute is resolved, you can re-enable AutoPay for the client. To learn more, see Getting Started with AutoPay.

Avoiding disputed charges

While disputes are an unfortunate part of accepting online payments, the best way to manage them is to take steps to avoid them. Here are some important steps you can take to avoid disputes:

• Maintaining clear and frequent contact with your clients can help prevent many of the reasons for disputes. By responding to issues and processing refunds quickly, your clients are less likely to take the time to dispute a payment. Additionally, by making your contact information prominent and keeping clients updated throughout their payment process, you can actively work to avoid disputes.
• Including a clear description of both your refund and cancellation policies in your practice documents.
• Using a recognizable name for your Statement descriptor. This can be updated at Settings > Billing and Service > Online Payments. We recommend using your business name, as this helps avoid client confusion when they look at their bank statements.

Note: Every cardholder ultimately has the right to dispute charges with their card issuer. While you can take steps to minimize the likelihood of disputes, they aren’t entirely preventable.

Accepting a disputed charge

Accepting a dispute means that you agree that the dispute was valid and that the cardholder should have their funds returned. This is your best option if you don’t intend to submit evidence.

Note: Accepting a dispute is not an admission of fault, and will not negatively impact your standing with SimplePractice, our processing partners, or the client’s bank.

To accept a dispute:

• Navigate to Billing > Card transactions
• Locate the disputed charge
• Click Accept Dispute

Once you accept the dispute, the dispute will be closed with the client’s bank. At this time, the disputed funds will remain in the client’s bank account and the disputing bank will retain the $15 dispute fee. This is a standard practice, and every payment processor charges a fee to cover the administrative costs of processing a dispute.

Note: You can consider writing off an accepted or lost dispute. To learn more about this, see Change the fee for individual appointments.

Preparing evidence to challenge a disputed charge

The evidence you submit to challenge a disputed charge should be appropriate to the reason for the dispute. You can find the Dispute reason by navigating to Billing > Card transactions and clicking Details next to the disputed transaction..

Note: For more information about dispute reasons, see Dispute categories.

When preparing evidence, follow these best practice to ensure you have the greatest possible chance of a dispute being found in your favor and having your funds returned:

Keep your evidence relevant and to the point

• Card issuers review thousands of dispute responses each day. Instead of providing a long description about your company or the dispute situation, provide only the facts surrounding the original purchase, using a neutral and professional tone.
  
  • Example: “Client attended a X session at [place of business] on [date] and was charged for it using their [Visa/Mastercard/etc.] credit card. The client agreed to our practice policies and authorized this transaction."
• Many merchants also include email or text correspondence with the customer. That said, it’s important to make sure that these exchanges don’t verify identity. If you include them, make sure only the relevant information is included.
  • For example, if you’re going to include a long email thread, redact any text that is only quoting previous emails.

Tip: Your evidence should be factual, professional, and concise. While not providing enough evidence is a problem, overwhelming the card issuer with unnecessary information can have the same effect. Web logs, email communications, proof of prior refunds, etc., can all be helpful evidence.

Provide clear and accurate evidence

• Dispute evidence reviewers decide fairly quickly whether or not the evidence is sufficient to refute the cardholder’s claims. You can make it easier for them by circling or calling out important information, and being brief wherever possible.
• For responses with multiple pieces of evidence, you can include a table of contents and give each uploaded image/PDF an attachment number or letter. If you’re including a copy of your practice policy or refund policy, highlight the relevant information to make your case clearer.

Important: Card issuers don’t follow any links provided in a response. Instead, we recommend providing clear screenshots of your terms or policies as they appear to your clients if they’re an important part of your defense.

Include proof of customer authorization

• Fraudulent disputes account for more than half of all disputes. Proving the cardholder was aware of and authorized the disputed transaction is crucial in such cases. This can include:
  
  • Address Verification System (AVS) matches
  • Card Verification Code (CVC) confirmations
  • Signed receipts or contracts
  • IP address that matches the cardholder's verified billing address

Note: SimplePractice always includes any AVS/CVC results, as well as the purchase IP (if available), when you submit evidence. If you have any other evidence of authorization, we recommend including it.

Include proof of service

• In addition to fraudulent disputes, claims from cardholders that appointments never happened, were unsatisfactory, or not as described are also potential dispute reasons. Assuming that all is well on your side (the services happened, were satisfactory, and were as described), you’ll want to provide proof that the appointment occurred.

Note: For a full list of potential dispute reasons, see Explaining disputes. 

Include a copy of your practice policies and refund policy

• When it comes to disputes, fine print matters. Providing proof that your customer agreed to and understood your policies, or didn’t follow your policies when it comes to refunds, is critical. A clean screenshot of how your policies are presented during intake is an important addition to your evidence—it's not enough to simply include a text copy of these.
  

Challenging a disputed charge

When you receive notification that a client has disputed a charge, it's important to keep in mind that some clients may dispute a payment in error, not realizing the charge was legitimate. We recommend first reaching out directly to the client and asking that they contact their bank to withdraw the dispute. Even if your client does this, the process involves a rigid series of formal communications between banking entities that still results in a long process.

Regardless of your client's willingness to withdraw the dispute, we highly recommend submitting a formal challenge. Some clients may not be able to withdraw the dispute or may simply forget to do so.

Tip: The evidence you submit to challenge a disputed charge should be appropriate to the reason for the dispute. To learn more, see Preparing evidence to challenge a disputed charge.

To challenge a dispute:

• Navigate to Billing > Card transactions
• Locate the disputed charge
• Click Details
• Select Submit Evidence

• Fill in all of the required information
  • Upload the evidence for the dispute in the Upload evidence field

Important: Banks only allow for dispute evidence to be submitted one time. Make sure to provide all relevant evidence in a single PDF document that is under 4.5MB in size and 50 pages or less. On average, evidence submitted is 1-5 pages in length.

• Click Submit

Once you’ve submitted a response, it generally takes the card issuer 60–75 days to reach a final decision.

Important: Evidence to challenge a dispute must be submitted by 11:59 PM UTC at the latest on the designated due date.If you don’t challenge the dispute by the deadline included in the email, we won’t be able to help you challenge the dispute. Additionally, the disputed funds will be returned to the client’s bank account, and the disputing bank will retain the $15 dispute fee.

Understanding inquiries and retrievals

Sometimes a card issuer will start investigating a charge before turning it into a formal dispute. These are known as inquiries or retrievals, depending on which card network initiated the investigation. Inquiries and retrievals will appear on your Card transactions report as a disputed charge. The banner will include additional information stating that no funds are currently being withheld from your account.

Unlike other disputed charges, inquiries and retrievals can be refunded by clicking Refund Charge. You won’t incur a $15 dispute fee for refunding an inquiry or retrieval.

It’s important to submit evidence to prevent the inquiry from escalating into a formal dispute. However, if the evidence is found insufficient or the client refutes your evidence, the case could become a formal dispute. If this occurs, the charge can’t be refunded, and you’ll have to update your response and submit additional evidence.

Disputes on partially refunded payments

While uncommon, a payment can be disputed for the full amount, even if a partial refund has already been made (ex: a refund of a smaller amount that has been agreed upon). We understand this can be frustrating as it leaves you responsible for the partial refund you’ve already processed and the full amount disputed. However, card issuers are very willing to rectify this situation.

Even if you plan to accept the un-refunded portion of the dispute, it’s important that you provide evidence of the partial refund in your response. This should include the amount and date of the refund, and could even include a screenshot of the refund information from your account.

In most cases, the card issuer cancels the original dispute and creates a separate one for the corrected amount. If the dispute is fully resolved in your favor, the entire amount is returned to you. If it’s not, only the partially refunded amount is returned.