Addressing Chargebacks

As good as your chargeback prevention mechanisms may be and despite all the best practices that you may have incorporated into your sales process, chances are that you will receive a chargeback or two every so often. When that happens you should first try to resolve it without losing the sale. Provide to your credit card merchant processor additional information about the transaction at issue or about the shipping, delivery or other issues that you might have had. A chargeback may have been initiated because the cardholder has not received the product or service on the agreed-upon date. You may be able to resolve the issue by providing evidence that the merchandise was received within the specified time-frame, however the cardholder has not counted the weekend days. Send this information to your credit card payment processing provider as soon as possible. Be advised that you should provide as much information, relevant to the issue, as you have available. Once your small business merchant account provider has sufficient evidence to support your case, the transaction may be re-presented, through the Credit Card Association, to the card issuer.

Another important factor in the chargeback process is time. You will have a certain time limit to complete every step of the process. If you don't respond to a particular request within the specified time-frame, you will lose your re-presentment rights and will not be able to get your money back. You should also be advised that, if a chargeback cannot be reversed, either because you don't have supporting evidence to represent or for another reason, you will be well advised to accept it and move on, saving valuable time and money.