How to resolve customer disputes through Safepay

As a business grows and expands its reach, the chances of a dispute from one of its customer also increases. Dispute resolution is an extremely tedious process which requires a lot of time and effort from the merchant’s end. Safepay has made it extremely easy for merchants to resolve a dispute.

To learn more about what a dispute is read this guide.

1. Where can Merchants find disputes on dashboard?
2. Responding to dispute
3. What kind of evidence should I provide to decline a dispute?
4. Next step after a dispute/chargeback

If a transaction has been marked as disputed, there are two ways for you to find out:

1. Safepay will reach to you via email. Please find a sample email sent to our merchant below.

   2. You can check for a disputed transaction on your merchant dashboard

Where can Merchants find disputes on dashboard?

Disputes can be found on your merchant dashboard. 

Click on payments → Click on dispute → Following dashboard would open.

Each payment can be expanded to see the status and reason for dispute. Once dispute is claimed, merchant can either accept or reject the claim by submitting evidence against it.

A disputed transaction can fall under either of these status:

1. Dispute Open
   1. Merchant has not responded to the claim yet or 
   2. Merchant has submitted evidence and the claim is still under review
2. Dispute Won
   1. Merchant has won the dispute. The amount that was disputed will now land in merchant’s account during settlement
3. Dispute Lost
   1. Merchant has lost the dispute and will not be settled for the disputed amount.

Responding to dispute

A merchant can expand any transaction marked as disputed and see its details. Once expanded, merchant can choose to either Accept Dispute or Provide Evidence against it.

If you choose to Accept Dispute from the amount will be deducted from your next settlement round. For example, if merchant were to be settled a bulk amount Rs 1000 on 1st October 2022 and Rs 500 on 2nd October 2022 and Rs 100 transaction from the Rs 1000 settlement has been marked as disputed, the merchant would still be settled Rs 1000 on 1st October 2022 but on 2nd October 2022 where merchant is to be settled with Rs 500, they will be settled with Rs 400, minus the Rs 100 which was marked as disputed.

Once the merchant clicks on Accept Dispute following pop up will show

Once the merchant clicks on Submit Evidence the following detail forms open up.

What kind of evidence should I provide to decline a dispute?

This varies depending on the type of business you're into, as different businesses give value in various ways.  However, whatever document you upload as evidence should have the following:

• the disputed transaction amount
• the date the disputed sum was successfully paid and received by you
• the name of the beneficiary of the transaction
• a brief description of the service or service delivered to the customer

You must gather compelling evidence related to the disputed transaction. Your evidence is spread across various data sources. This includes payment processors, shopping cart platforms and buyer service portals. Here are some examples of data points that are included in a response:

• Delivery receipt
• Invoice slip
• A brief description of the service or service delivered to the buyer
• Any confirmation SMS or email
• Shipping Verification
• Past Transaction History
• Subsequent Transactions from buyer
• Email Communication & Interactions
• Phone Call Transcripts
• Live Chat Transcripts 

Next step after a dispute/chargeback

If you do not provide adequate evidence, your customer can still ask their Issuing Bank to challenge the transaction. This stage is called pre-arbitration. If pre-arbitration is not accepted by the merchant then the dispute goes to arbitration. Arbitration is where all relevant evidences are reviewed by the Payment Scheme to determine an outcome. The losing party of the arbitration is required to pay a fixed fee of USD 500 to the arbitration scheme. The best way to avoid an arbitration is by having good record keeping of orders that you have processed online, including evidences of delivery. Read more about it here.

Other essential practices when providing evidence: 

• Please make sure documents are clear and legible. illegible documents may not be admissible and could lead to a financial loss if funds are reversed to the customer.
• Where applicable, make sure documents uploaded only contain details about the specific transaction that is being disputed. Please crop out any data that pertains to other transactions and other customers.
• Make sure to upload all relevant documents pertaining to a chargeback the very first time as there may not always be room for the chargeback to be re-opened.      

Once the merchant submits the evidence, it can take anywhere around 30 - 75 days to settle the dispute claim.