What is a chargeback & how does it work?

Published on: 2024-10-22 14:42:37 +0100

A chargeback is the process whereby a customer can dispute a card payment. Unless you’re dealing with a fraudulent card payment, it is usually much easier and quicker to resolve the issue directly with the merchant.The chargeback process can be considered as your second line of defence if you’re not happy with the initial merchant’s response.

A chargeback can be used for a number of reasons:

• Merchant dispute: You recognise or made a payment but there is a problem, for example, a merchant charged you incorrectly, or you didn’t received goods or services

• ATM dispute: You made an ATM withdrawal but none or not all cash was dispensed

• Fraudulent payment: (someone else) used your card fraudulently

Things to keep in mind:

• You must raise this with Pockit within 120 days of the transaction being taken, with a few exceptions. 

• Disputes with merchants can take a long time and are not guaranteed to have a successful outcome (win). That’s why we usually inform our customer to first try to resolve the issue directly with the merchant. 

• In order to raise a merchant dispute, we require you to prove that you’ve attempted to resolve the matter with the merchant first. If you raise a merchant dispute without proof of trying to resolve it with the merchant first, you will be redirected to the merchant. 

How does a chargeback claim generally work?

1. When you report a card payment to Pockit due to one of the reasons mentioned above, you’ll receive an online chargeback form to complete. If you report fraud, we’ll also cancel your Pockit card. 

2. Once you’ve completed the chargeback form, we’ll investigate it and may get in touch to get more evidence or information from you.

3. If you raise a fraudulent card payment dispute, we’ll process your claim shortly after by either refunding or rejecting your claim based on the evidence and information gathered. 

4. If you raise a merchant or ATM dispute, and we think we have enough grounds to raise a chargeback, we’ll raise it via Mastercard’s chargeback system. Typically we’ll get an outcome after 45 days* from the date that we’ve raised your claim.

   1. The merchant during this time has the ability to challenge our claim.

      1. If the merchant challenges our claim, and if we think we have enough grounds to dispute their challenge, we can escalate the claim, which would in turn increase the total timeframe to complete the chargeback. In case the chargeback needs more time, we’ll let you know.

   2. When your chargeback claim has been completed the outcome is either successful (you get your refund) or unsuccessful (you won’t get a refund). When there’s an outcome we’ll get in touch to let you know.

*Please note that the initial 45 day chargeback process is dictated by the chargeback rules set out by Mastercard®, which we have no control over. That’s why we always recommend trying to resolve disputes directly with merchants where possible. 

Our team will proactively contact you when there’s an update on your claim or if we need more information, so please bear in mind that chasing an update won’t help speed up your claim.