Responding to Inquiries and DisputesÂ
Dealing with payment disputes is common for businesses, and it can be slightly tricky as it involves refunds and chargeback fees. We recommend that you carefully review and respond to disputes within the deadlines to ensure that you do not suffer losses.
Insight: Chargebacks are initiated by your customer’s bank or card issuer. Zoho Payments does not handle chargebacks but helps you manage and resolve them.
Note: Only the account owner, admin, and dispute staff can respond to disputed transactions.
Responding to Inquiries
A payment inquiry is just a formal request for information or clarification a customer makes regarding a payment. You will be notified via email when an inquiry has been created. You can also view them in the Disputes module.
Some inquiries turn into disputes when there’s no response from the customers, whereas some inquiries are closed when the business clarifies the transaction details or issues a refund.
Insight: It is crucial to respond to inquiries within the given date, as transactions that do not get a response will be automatically converted to a dispute.
1. Contact the customer
Reach out to your customer to know what went wrong. Sometimes, they might just want to see the status of their payment or order, request a payment receipt, or confirm why a particular charge was made.
Insight: You can find the customer’s details in the Dispute details page.
Explain the transaction and send them the details; the customer might withdraw the inquiry. The transaction’s status will then be updated to Closed.
Insight: The customer can also choose to escalate an inquiry. Then, the transaction’s status will be Dispute Created.
2. Refund the payment
If your product or service has yet to be delivered or the customer was charged incorrectly, refund the payment immediately. To issue a refund:
- Go to the transaction that received an inquiry.
- Click Refund in the top right corner.
- Enter the Amount and select the Reason.
- Click Proceed to issue the refund.
The transaction status will be updated to Refunded, and the inquiry will be considered closed.
3. Challenge and submit a response
Sometimes, the inquiry will be withdrawn when you’ve clarified the payment to the customer. And other times, if the customer disagrees, you must submit evidence to the card network backing your claim.
Either way, submitting your response to the card network is good practice so the evidence is documented and to prevent miscommunication. To respond:
- Go to the transaction that received an inquiry.
- Click the Respond button in the top-right corner.
- Enter the required details and attach the required evidence.
Note: Ensure that individual file sizes do not exceed 5MB, and the total file size should also not exceed 5MB. Additionally, each file should not contain more than 50 pages.
- Submit your response after verifying the details.
The response will be sent to the card network.
Note: If an inquiry is escalated to a dispute, the chances of winning the dispute are extremely low. We recommend that you resolve the inquiry to avoid escalation.
Responding to Disputes
Disputes are disagreements raised by customers for a payment. If the customer has chosen to escalate the inquiry, or if the customer had disputed the transaction directly, then a transaction’s status will be updated to Dispute Created. The disputed amount and a fee will be withdrawn from your account.
You will be notified via email when a dispute has been created. You can also view them in the Disputes module.
There are only two ways to respond to a dispute. You can choose to accept or challenge it depending on the nature of the dispute and the evidence available.
1. Accept the dispute
If you processed the payment incorrectly or the customer’s claim regarding the product or service is valid, you can accept the dispute. The chargeback amount and fee will not be returned to you. To accept:
- Go to the disputed transaction.
- Click Accept Dispute in the top-right corner.
- Enter the reason for accepting the dispute and click Accept again.
Warning: When you accept a dispute, you can no longer submit evidence defending your claim and the chargeback that has been processed will not be reversed.
2. Challenge and submit a response
After you’ve reviewed the dispute and you think the customer’s claim is false, you can challenge the dispute and provide details and evidence backing your claim.
Insight: Challenge the dispute within the given deadline. If the deadline passes, the dispute will be considered as accepted, and you can no longer defend your claim.
To submit your claim:
- Go to the disputed transaction.
- Click the Respond button in the top-right corner.
- Enter the required details and attach the necessary evidence.
Note: Ensure that individual file sizes do not exceed 5MB, and the total file size should also not exceed 5MB. Additionally, each file should not contain more than 50 pages.
- Submit your response after verifying the details.
The response will be sent to the card network, and it may take 2-3 months to receive a response from them.
Note: Submitting a response does not ensure the dispute will be won in your favor. It only takes you one step closer to getting your chargeback reversed. The card network makes the final call on the dispute. View our document on submitting responses for more details.
