Dispute a card purchase

This is for something one of your cards bought. If a customer is disputing a payment to you, see Disputes. If you don’t recognise the purchase, see I don’t recognise a card purchase.

Who can do this: You need to be an owner, admin or manager to do this.

Find the purchase under Recent purchases on Cards, or on the card’s page. It must be paid.
Choose Dispute beside it.
In What went wrong?, choose the reason, such as It never arrived, then choose Start the dispute. The dispute opens as a draft on its own page. Nothing is sent yet.
Under Your evidence, in What happened, explain in your own words. The card network receives this as your evidence.
Answer the questions for that reason, and add any supporting file.
Choose Save draft to finish later, or Submit the dispute…, then Submit to the card network.

The purchase then shows Disputed: the card network is deciding. Your drafts and sent disputes are under Cards, then Card disputes.

If nobody at your business made the purchase, choose I don’t recognise this instead of Dispute.

What the card network needs

Each reason needs its own details. We check they’re all there before anything is sent, so the network never rejects your dispute for a missing answer.

It never arrived: whether it was goods or a service, what you bought, and when it should have arrived.
It was cancelled, and charged anyway: what you bought, when it should have arrived, when and why you cancelled, and whether the merchant told you its cancellation policy. For goods, also when you sent it back and whether they took it back.
It was not as described: when it arrived, when and how you sent it back, whether they took it back, and what was wrong.
The service was not as described: when you received it, when and why you cancelled, and what was wrong.
It was charged twice: the original purchase, chosen from the card’s other purchases.
It was never authorised: your explanation. For a purchase nobody here made, I don’t recognise this writes the explanation for you.
Something else: what you bought and what happened.

You can add a supporting document, such as a receipt or delivery record: a PDF, or a JPEG photo, of up to 5 MB.

By when

You can usually dispute a purchase for 110 days after it was paid. Some windows are shorter: a Visa purchase disputed as never authorised has 65 days, and a Mastercard purchase charged twice has 80 days. To leave room, each dispute has a “dispute by” date 5 days before the network’s own deadline.

If you’ve started a dispute but not sent it, we remind you 7 days before that date.

The card networks have their own rules, and we tell you about them before you send:

Cancelled something? Wait 15 days after cancelling before disputing it as cancelled or as a service not as described. This gives the merchant time to refund you. We tell you the date you can send it from, and keep what you’ve written.
Partly refunded? You can dispute only what hasn’t come back.
Fraud on one card: the networks accept at most 35 fraud disputes on one card in 120 days.

What happens next

The network asks the merchant to respond. Most disputes are decided within 30 to 90 days.

Dispute won: the money comes back to what your cards can spend. The purchase shows Dispute won with the amount.
Dispute lost: the purchase shows Dispute lost, and we explain the network’s reason in plain words. The network doesn’t allow a second dispute. If you still think the charge is wrong, contact the merchant.
A dispute not sent by its deadline expires.

Money while you wait. For a fraud or never-authorised dispute, the card network usually adds the disputed amount to your card balance by the next business day. On a new account, that money is on hold until the dispute is decided. See Why is my dispute money on hold?.

No dispute fee. The card network charges a fee for each dispute. Tuppence pays it, not you.

Fraud: the card is cancelled and replaced

When you choose I don’t recognise this, then Dispute and replace the card, the card is cancelled at once and a replacement is issued with the same rules and limits. The networks require this: while the card stays active, later fraud disputes on it would be lost. A replacement for fraud is always allowed, even when you’ve reached your card limits.

When an agent starts the dispute

Your agents can start a dispute and fill in the details from their own records: what they ordered, from whom, and what you approved. They can’t send it. A dispute is your business’s statement to the card network, so a person sends it. The agent’s request appears with your purchase approvals. Check what the agent wrote, then approve to send the dispute as you (see Approve or decline a purchase). If you decline, the dispute stays unsent.

The emails you’ll get

We email your account’s owners when a dispute is sent to the card network, when it’s won or lost, and if it expires, plus the reminder before the “dispute by” date. If your business runs through a platform, those emails go to the platform’s owners and name your business.

If someone may be using the card without permission, also freeze it.