Payment disputes (Stripe)

This guide provides details on managing disputes for licence fees and other payments made via the Stripe payment platform.

Types Of Disputes

A payment dispute occurs when a cardholder questions a payment with their card issuer. Many disputes are the result of the cardholder not recognising the transaction or it can be for one of the following reasons

• Fraudulent
• Not received
• Duplicate
• Merchandise not as described
• Service not as described
• Cancelled
• Other

How Disputes Work

There can be two stages related to a dispute

• Inquiry/retrieval – Initial query from customer requesting more information related to the payment made. Effort should be made to resolve the dispute where possible at this stage to prevent escalation to a refund of payment.
• Chargeback – An inquiry can progress to a refund of payment known as a chargeback. Chargebacks can incur fees. After the chargeback is created, you have a limited amount of time (usually 7–21 days) to respond with evidence. The time given varies depending on the card network.

Identifying Disputed Payments
 

Payments with pending disputes can be identified by the status label against the payment entry

Details of the dispute can be found towards the bottom of the payment entry and include the following information on the type and current status of the dispute

• The reason the dispute was made
• The chargeback (refund) message is included where this is applicable
• The current status of the dispute

While Metastreet provides a summary of the dispute, comprehensive details can be found on Stripe.

Dispute Outcomes

The outcome of the dispute can be as follows

• Won dispute but funds not reinstated
• Won dispute and funds reinstated
• Lost dispute

Payments will remain in the disputed state unless the council has won the dispute and funds are returned to the council. For this outcome the status will return to ‘paid’. 

Metastreet has no role in the actual dispute.  The bank/payment platform should be contacted for detailed information on the dispute and outcomes.