> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sellauth.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Disputes
> Track chargebacks, inquiries and PayPal claims next to their invoices, answer them with the delivery evidence SellAuth records, and automate what happens after.
When a buyer disputes a payment with their bank or with PayPal, the processor tells SellAuth. SellAuth matches the dispute to the invoice it belongs to and lists it under [**Disputes**](https://dash.sellauth.com/disputes) with the amount, the reason and the deadline for your response.
The disputes list, dispute pages, evidence tools, automations, alerts and the Disputed invoice filter require the Scale plan. Every plan gets the stat cards on the Disputes page, the Disputed chip on invoices and the Charged Back status.
## Processors that report disputes
| Processor | Setup |
| - | - |
| [Stripe](/guides/payment-methods/stripe) | Nothing extra |
| [PayPal](/guides/payment-methods/paypal) Checkout (REST API) | Nothing extra |
| [Square](/guides/payment-methods/square) | Nothing extra |
| [Revolut Business](/guides/payment-methods/card-processors#revolut-business) | Nothing extra |
| [Dodo Payments](/guides/payment-methods/dodo-payments) | Nothing extra |
| [Pandabase](/guides/payment-methods/platforms#pandabase) | Nothing extra |
| [Whop](/guides/payment-methods/platforms#whop) | The `dispute.created` and `dispute.updated` events on your Whop webhook |
| [Razorpay](/guides/payment-methods/card-processors#razorpay) | The `payment.dispute` events on your Razorpay webhook |
SellAuth registers what it needs with the processor when you connect it. Only disputes that match a SellAuth invoice are listed. A dispute on a payment you took outside SellAuth never shows up.
Other processors, PayPal Payments Standard and the manual methods such as crypto, Cash App or PayPal Friends and Family do not report disputes. When one of those payments is reversed, [mark the invoice as charged back](#marking-an-invoice-as-charged-back) yourself.
## Dispute statuses
| Status | Meaning |
| - | - |
| **Needs Response** | The processor is waiting for your evidence. Respond before the deadline, or the dispute is lost |
| **Under Review** | Your evidence is in, or the processor is still deciding. Nothing to do |
| **Won** | Decided in your favour. The disputed amount is returned to you |
| **Lost** | Decided in the buyer's favour |
| **Accepted** | You accepted the dispute instead of contesting it |
| **Expired** | The deadline passed without a response |
| **Prevented** | Settled before it became a chargeback, usually through a card network alert program that refunds the buyer automatically |
| **Withdrawn** | The buyer withdrew the dispute |
| **Closed** | Closed without a winner, such as an inquiry that never became a chargeback |
Next to the status, each dispute shows its stage:
* **Inquiry**: the bank asks for information before deciding whether to charge back. Answering it well often stops the chargeback.
* **Chargeback**: the bank has reversed the payment, and the processor has usually taken the amount plus a dispute fee from your balance.
* **PayPal Claim**: the buyer opened a case with PayPal rather than with their bank.
* **Pre-Arbitration** and **Arbitration**: a second round after the first decision. The dispute needs a new response, and you get a new alert.
## Responding to a dispute
Open the dispute from [**Disputes**](https://dash.sellauth.com/disputes) or from the banner on the invoice. The page shows the amount, the reason in plain words, how long you have left and the dispute's timeline. At the bottom, SellAuth has already drafted your response from what it recorded:
* the order, the buyer's email, IP address, country and device at checkout;
* when the order was delivered and when the delivery email went out. For physical products, the shipping address, shipping date and tracking number. For services you fulfill by hand, when you marked the order completed;
* every time the buyer opened the order page or downloaded the order, with IP address, country and device. Visits from your own team are left out;
* earlier orders from the same buyer that were never disputed, support tickets and the buyer's review;
* your published terms of service and refund policy.
A visit from the **same IP address as checkout** is the strongest sign that the person who paid received what they bought. Delivered contents such as license keys are never included.
The draft also asks you a few questions that only you can answer for the dispute's reason, such as whether the buyer contacted you first. Your answers appear in the rebuttal as your own statement, kept apart from what SellAuth recorded.
### Stripe disputes
Stripe disputes are answered from SellAuth in six steps: triage, your answers, the evidence fields, files, the rebuttal and a final review.
The first step explains the reason and what usually wins it. **Accept dispute** concedes it in Stripe and closes it as lost, which makes sense when the buyer has a point.
Every field is filled in from your records and labelled with where it came from. Edit anything that is wrong. Values Stripe filled in on its own are kept unless you change them.
Upload a receipt, a screenshot of a conversation or other proof as PDF, PNG or JPEG, up to 4 MB in total. When you submit, SellAuth attaches the evidence packet (your rebuttal and every exhibit as one PDF) unless you uploaded your own file in that slot.
Stripe accepts one submission per dispute and sends it to the card issuer straight away, so review the last step carefully. The issuer usually decides within 60 to 75 days.
Your draft is saved in SellAuth and nothing reaches Stripe until you submit, so you can work on it over several sessions.
If your Stripe key was created with hand-picked permissions, it needs write access to **Disputes** and **Files** to submit. Without it, the last step shows the same evidence as text to paste into the dispute in your Stripe dashboard. See [Stripe](/guides/payment-methods/stripe).
### Other processors
PayPal, Square, Revolut Business, Dodo Payments, Pandabase, Whop and Razorpay take evidence in their own dashboards. SellAuth prepares everything you need there:
* the rebuttal, which you can rewrite from the evidence or edit by hand;
* each piece of evidence as text with a **Copy** button;
* **Download PDF packet**, to upload as your supporting document.
Once you have sent your response, choose **Mark as submitted** so the dispute shows as answered. The draft is locked afterwards.
Some disputes cannot be contested, such as a bank return or a fraud claim the card network does not let merchants challenge. The dispute page says so when that applies, and the money is lost whatever you send.
Evidence that helps across most dispute reasons:
* **A written refund policy.** Processors ask for it. Fill it in under [Legal Pages](https://dash.sellauth.com/shop/legal) so it also appears at checkout.
* **The terms checkbox.** Requiring agreement at checkout leaves a record that the buyer accepted your terms.
* **Your conversation with the buyer.** A [ticket](/guides/tickets) where they confirmed the order worked, or never asked for help, counters a "not received" or "not as described" claim.
## What happens to the invoice
While a dispute is open, the invoice keeps its status and shows a red **Disputed** chip. The invoice list marks it with a shield icon, and on Scale you can filter the list to disputed invoices only. Automatic 5 star reviews are not left on disputed invoices.
When the processor reports the dispute as lost, accepted or expired for the full amount, the invoice moves to **Charged Back**. It is booked like a refund: the paid amount drops to zero and your revenue and sales counts no longer include it. If you had already marked the invoice as refunded, it stays Refunded.
A Charged Back order no longer shows its deliverables, instructions or downloadable files on the order page, download links in earlier emails stop working, and its delivery email cannot be resent. Refunded orders work the same way.
A dispute lost for only part of the payment leaves the status alone and adds a **Partially charged back** chip with the amount.
If a lost dispute is later overturned in your favour, the invoice goes back to the status it had before.
The buyer's order page shows the order as charged back.
### Marking an invoice as charged back
For a processor that does not report disputes, open the invoice and choose **Mark as** > **Mark as Charged Back**. The bookkeeping is the same as above, and nothing is sent to your processor. The dialog also offers to reverse cashback and affiliate commission, the same as [a refund](/guides/refunds#reversing-cashback-and-affiliate-commission).
**Mark as** > **Mark as Completed** undoes it.
## After a chargeback
The dispute page lists the clean-up that applies to the order, each limited to team members with the matching permission:
* **Blacklist the buyer**: blocks the email, IP address or Discord ID from ordering again.
* **Cancel the subscription** the order started.
* **Reverse cashback** or **affiliate commission** the order paid out. Both can take a balance negative.
* **Reverse the store balance top-up**, when the disputed order topped up the buyer's balance.
* **Change Refunded to Charged Back**, when you had already marked the order refunded and the dispute was then lost. Nothing is booked twice.
## Automations
On the Scale plan, **Automations** on the Disputes page can act for you. Every automation is off until you turn it on.
| Automation | What it does |
| - | - |
| **Blacklist the buyer** | When a chargeback opens, blocks the order's email and IP address. Your team's IP addresses are never blocked |
| **Take back access** | When a chargeback opens, removes the Discord roles the order granted unless another paid order still grants them, cancels the order's subscription and stops its pending automated emails |
| **Kick or ban from Discord** | Removes the buyer from every server you sell roles in, either when the chargeback opens or only if you lose it |
| **Submit evidence before the deadline** | With a day left on a Stripe dispute, submits your draft. Without a draft, it only submits when the buyer opened or downloaded the order from their checkout IP address |
Every action an automation takes appears on the invoice timeline. Discord actions need the buyer's Discord account on the order, and your bot needs the **Kick Members** or **Ban Members** permission with its role above the buyer's. When it lacks them, you get one notification per server and day.
## Early fraud warnings
A card issuer can tell Stripe that a payment was fraud before the cardholder files a chargeback. Stripe calls this an early fraud warning, and a chargeback often follows within weeks. Refunding the payment while the warning is open stops that chargeback and its dispute fee.
Warnings appear on the invoice timeline, and on the Disputes page under **Filters** > **Type** > **Early fraud warnings**. They are not disputes: they do not count in the stat cards, the Disputed chip or the dispute rate, and they take no evidence. Refund them in Stripe, then mark the invoice as refunded in SellAuth.
## Alerts
On Scale, **Payment Dispute Opened** alerts you in the dashboard and by email as soon as a dispute needs a response, and again if an existing dispute needs a new one. **Payment Dispute Closed** tells you how it ended in the dashboard, and by email once you turn that on. Both can also go to Discord, Telegram or your own endpoint, see [Notifications](/guides/notifications) and [HTTP notifications](/developers/http-notifications#dispute-events).
The **Disputes** item in the sidebar counts the disputes that need a response, and the dashboard shows a banner when one is due within 3 days.
## Dispute rate
The cards at the top of the Disputes page cover the last 90 days:
* **Needs Response**: disputes waiting for your evidence, and how many are due within 3 days.
* **At Risk**: the money held in open disputes, in USD.
* **Lost**: disputed amounts plus dispute fees you lost, with how many disputes were won, lost, and lost without a response.
* **Dispute Rate**: disputes per SellAuth order on processors that report disputes.
Processors and card networks watch your dispute rate. Above about 0.75% they may hold your payouts, raise your fees or close the account, so a rising rate is worth acting on before it gets there. [Blacklisting](/guides/blacklist-and-whitelist) the buyer from the invoice stops the same person from buying and disputing again, and blacklist rules for VPN and Tor connections, disposable email domains or specific countries cut repeat cases further.
## Team permissions
Disputes have their own read and update permissions under [Teams and Permissions](/guides/teams-and-permissions). Members and API keys that could already read or update invoices received the matching dispute permission when Disputes launched.
## Next steps
Record a refund and reverse cashback or commission.
Stop a buyer who disputed from ordering again.
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