Reference
Chargeback glossary
Every term a merchant runs into during a dispute, in plain English. No jargon for its own sake, and links to the deeper guides where they help.
- Chargeback
- A forced reversal of a card payment initiated by the cardholder's bank, not by you. The money leaves your account while the dispute is decided. It is different from a refund, which you issue voluntarily.
- Dispute
- The umbrella term for a cardholder challenging a charge. On Stripe and most processors, "dispute" and "chargeback" are used interchangeably; some platforms (PayPal) start with a softer buyer-seller dispute before it escalates to a chargeback.
- Reason code
- The standardized classification the issuing bank assigns to a chargeback (for example Visa 13.1, "merchandise not received"). It tells you exactly what the cardholder is claiming, which determines what evidence wins. Every reason code, explained →
- Representment
- The formal name for fighting a chargeback: you re-present the transaction to the issuer with evidence arguing the charge was valid. The bank then decides whether to reverse the chargeback back in your favor.
- Compelling evidence
- The documentation a bank analyst weighs when deciding a representment: delivery proof, authentication results, prior transaction history, customer communication. What counts as compelling depends on the reason code.
- 3D Secure (3DS)
- An extra authentication step (a bank prompt, one-time code, or app approval) at checkout. When a transaction is authenticated with 3DS, fraud liability generally shifts from you to the issuer, which is the single strongest defense against fraud-reason chargebacks. See the 3DS liability shift →
- Liability shift
- The rule that moves financial responsibility for a fraud chargeback from the merchant to the issuing bank when certain conditions are met, most commonly successful 3D Secure authentication. If liability has shifted, the fraud dispute is often invalid on its face.
- Visa CE 3.0 (Compelling Evidence 3.0)
- A Visa program that lets you defeat certain fraud disputes by proving two prior undisputed purchases by the same cardholder that share at least two identifiers (IP address, device ID, account, or shipping address), at least one of which must be the IP address or device ID. When you qualify, it turns your history into a rules-based win rather than a narrative.
- AVS (Address Verification Service)
- A check that compares the billing address entered at checkout against the address on file with the issuer. An AVS match is supporting evidence that the real cardholder made the purchase.
- CVV / CVC
- The short security code on a card. A CVV match at authorization is evidence the buyer physically had the card, which weakens an "unauthorized" fraud claim.
- Friendly fraud (first-party fraud)
- A chargeback filed by a real cardholder who actually made the purchase, whether from buyer's remorse, forgetting the charge, or abuse. It is the most common source of disputes and is often winnable with the right transaction and delivery records. Preventing friendly fraud →
- Pre-arbitration (pre-arb)
- A second round after you win a representment: the issuer pushes back again with new information. If it is not resolved, it can go to arbitration, where the card network decides and the loser typically pays a fee. Fight pre-arb only when your evidence genuinely answers the new claim.
- Arbitration
- The final stage where the card network itself rules on a contested dispute. It carries fees for the losing side, so it is usually reserved for high-value disputes where you are confident in the evidence.
- RDR (Rapid Dispute Resolution)
- A Visa program (part of Verifi) that can automatically resolve a dispute by refunding it before it becomes a formal chargeback, based on rules you set. It trades the refund for avoiding a chargeback on your record.
- Ethoca / Verifi alerts
- Networks (owned by Mastercard and Visa respectively) that notify merchants of an incoming dispute early, giving a window to refund and avoid the chargeback. Useful for stopping disputes you would lose anyway.
- Chargeback ratio
- Your chargebacks as a percentage of transactions. Card networks run monitoring programs (Visa VDMP/VFMP, Mastercard ECP) with thresholds; exceeding them brings fines and, eventually, loss of processing. Keeping this low matters more than winning any single dispute.
- Issuer vs acquirer
- The issuer is the cardholder's bank (which files the chargeback and decides it). The acquirer is your payment processor's bank (which represents your side). Your evidence flows from you, through your processor, to the issuer.
- Evidence due-by date
- The deadline the issuer sets for your response. Miss it and the dispute closes against you automatically, regardless of how strong your case is. Speed is often worth more than a perfect submission that arrives late.
- Self-authenticating evidence
- Evidence whose integrity and timing can be verified without trusting the party who produced it, because it is cryptographically signed and independently timestamped. Under FRE 902(13) and (14), such records can be admitted without a foundation witness. This is the standard CertNode receipts are built to. Verify a CertNode receipt →
- RFC 3161 timestamp
- A cryptographic timestamp issued by an independent authority proving a piece of data existed at a specific time and has not changed since. It is what stops evidence from being backdated.
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