How to Handle Disputed Charges

Overview: This overview will give a very brief summary of how to handle customers who have filed disputes for Zip installment charges. For more details on our dispute process, please read the entire article.Disputes show on the customer’s main account page in Nexus with a red gavel icon.Customers who dispute a charge will be blocked from purchases automatically in Nexus, which will restrict them from making Zip app or Zip Checkout orders, and will display a screen with the message, “We can't verify your account” (or, in rare cases “Account limitation”) when attempting to place new orders.However, if a customer receives the 'We can't verify your account' screen and does not have a dispute, please follow the How to Handle Nexus Blocks? processIf a customer has filed 4+ orders disputed, they will remain blocked from purchases permanently and are no longer eligible to use Zip.An agent must send these customers the [Customer Experience]::Payments::Disputed Charge::4+ Total Disputes Filed macro.You will need to use Stripe to confirm the listed reason for a dispute. See Disputes Reasons. Customers with disputes that list “fraudulent” as the reason in Stripe, or customers who deny filing a dispute, will require further review by the Fraud team.Support agents will use the Customer Experience::Transfers::Transfer to Fraud (Internal) macro to escalate these customers to the Fraud team.IMPORTANT NOTE: Regardless of the dispute outcome—or even if it’s still pending—any case showing 'Payment disputed as fraudulent' must be transferred to the Fraud team. Ensuring these cases are handled correctly helps protect both the customer and Zip. Customers with disputes that do NOT list “fraudulent” as the reason in Stripe can be unblocked from purchase by agents (we no longer need to request that these customers cancel their dispute).Disputes will interrupt a refund we have already processed in Nexus. If a disputed order has been refunded in full in Nexus…If the dispute is active, agents can accept the disputed installment in Stripe.If the dispute is finalized and “Won” by Zip, agents can proceed with refunding the customer in Stripe.If the dispute is finalized, and “Lost” by Zip, there is no action needed as these funds have already been returned to the customer.Important Note: The internal CX team will only issue a refund through Stripe if all of the following are true:The merchant has issued a refund,The dispute blocked the refund from going through, andZip won the dispute.Make sure to follow the full Dispute process to support the customer correctly.This article covers the dispute review and escalation process. A dispute (or chargeback) happens when a customer challenges a Zip installment charge and wants their bank or card company to recover the money. Sometimes, the card company or bank might dispute a Zip charge if it flags BNPL (buy now, pay later) transactions as potentially fraudulent. All dispute details, including the reason, status, and outcome (whether Zip 'won' or 'lost' the dispute), can be found in Stripe.At times, it can take 2-3 days for us to see a dispute in Stripe from when the customer files it with their bank. There could be several reasons a customer is disputing a Zip charge:They are expecting a merchant refund and they haven’t received it yet.They received a store credit refund and were unhappy with it.They didn’t receive their order or felt they were scammed by a merchant.They canceled their order, and for some reason, the cancellation refund hasn’t been issued yet.Their order was declined on the merchant’s site but processed on Zip’s end.The order was unauthorized, and they are reporting it as fraudulent.:blue_book: Dispute info in Nexus:Nexus will show us which orders have disputed charges. When you pull up the main account page, you will notice a red gavel on the right-hand side of the order (pictured below). When a customer disputes a Zip charge, they will be automatically blocked from purchases in Nexus, with a note stating they are blocked due to the fraud signal ‘InstallmentPaymentDisputeCreatedProcessSignal’. After being blocked due to their dispute, the customer should receive the “Thanks for Considering Us” (or, in rare cases, “Account Limitation”) message when attempting to place another order (using the Zip app or Zip Checkout).While you ca