Updated Feb 20, 2024

A dispute (also called a chargeback) occurs when a client disagrees with a transaction and requests a refund from their bank or credit card company. One of the most common reasons for a dispute is if your client doesn’t recognize the charge on their bank statement.

With Dubsado Payments, disputes will follow how Stripe handles their disputes. The process may look like:

If you believe the dispute reason is incorrect and want to challenge it, you can upload evidence supporting why the payment was valid through your Stripe Dashboard. After you submit evidence, Stripe will send it to the card issuer for their review.

Accepting the dispute means you are agreeing that the dispute is valid and that you don't plan on challenging it. For more information, see Stripe’s FAQ page on accepting disputes.

When Stripe makes a decision, the status of the dispute will be updated in your Stripe dashboard as “won” or “lost”. This outcome is final, so while you can’t overturn the dispute, that also means your client can’t overturn the dispute either.

Dispute fees are commonly used by most payment processors to help offset the time, cost, and resources that are put into settling the dispute.

Stripe’s dispute fee is 15 USD per dispute. If your currency is not USD, then the dispute will be 15 in your local currency. This amount is not refundable even if you win the dispute. For more information, see our article on processing fees.

Disputes take around 2-3 months to complete, starting from when your client initiates the dispute to the final decision being made. The only way to speed up this timeline would be to accept the dispute. For more details, see Stripe’s documentation on dispute timing.