Depending on the dispute reason, the timeframe for the cardholder to dispute a transaction differs. Though generally, the cardholder has up to 180 days to initiate a dispute.

Once a dispute has been filed by the cardholder, depending on the card association network, the whole dispute process may take up to 90-120 days to be resolved.

PayMongo assigns a 5-working-day deadline for the merchant to respond to the dispute. If no response was received within the given timeframe, it will be deemed as 'dispute accepted' and will then be recorded as lost.

If the cardholder's dispute claim is invalid, and you have sufficient evidence to prove otherwise, we suggest that you contest the dispute. If you decided to accept the dispute, your business will suffer revenue loss and an additional expense for the dispute fee.

Also, dispute acceptance and an increase in dispute may have an impact on your dispute threshold, which in turn can affect your merchant account risk rating.

Note that PayMongo adheres to the card association's dispute threshold of 1% and extends this threshold in accord with our sub-merchant.

Granting refunds after a transaction was disputed is not advisable. It will not be honored by the issuing bank and may cause duplicate reimbursement to the cardholder.

However, refunds, before a transaction were to be disputed, are highly recommended.

As a merchant, the transaction details, proof of fulfillment, shipping evidence, and other transaction documents will be your defense against dispute. Note that you can always contest the dispute using compelling evidence.

First, PayMongo offers fraud security features and fraud prevention tools to all our merchants. This provides a level of security on debit cards and credit card processing.

Also, we, together with our acquiring bank, act as an intermediary between you and your customer's issuing bank.

Lastly, we are here to guide you and help you with the dispute process. You can always reach us by sending an email to [email protected].