Answering a chargeback with the right evidence
How an online shop should answer a card chargeback: deciding to accept or contest, beating the deadline, and building one clear evidence file.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Retail businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The e-mail from the payment provider arrives on a busy Thursday: a customer has disputed a card payment for a pair of running shoes shipped two weeks ago, the amount has already been taken back, and the shop is invited to respond. The owner remembers the order, remembers the courier collecting it, and has no idea where the waybill went.
A chargeback is not an accusation the shop can ignore until it has time. It runs on the card system's clock, and the shop that answers late, or answers with a jumble of screenshots, usually loses money it was entitled to keep. This article walks through how a chargeback reaches a shop, how to decide whether to fight it, and how to build the evidence file.
How a chargeback lands on your desk
Flutterwave's documentation sets out the sequence. A chargeback starts when a customer reports a transaction to their bank. The issuing bank raises it through Flutterwave's acquiring bank, the value is debited, and Flutterwave then asks the merchant for proof of service or value and supporting documents.
Notice the order. The money is usually taken back before the shop has said anything. Responding is how the shop asks for it to be returned, not how it stops it being taken.
Other providers have their own processes and timings. Stripe warns that failing to respond to a dispute inquiry can signal to the issuer an implicit acceptance of the claim and escalate it to a formal, probably unwinnable chargeback. Silence is treated as an answer, and it is the wrong one.
Fight it or accept it
Not every chargeback is worth contesting. Flutterwave advises merchants to accept a chargeback where the customer did not get the expected value from the payment, and to decline it, using gathered evidence, where value was provided.
A quick way to decide:
| What happened | Likely response |
|---|---|
| The parcel never arrived, and the courier cannot prove delivery | Accept, and take it up with the courier |
| The customer returned the goods and you never refunded | Accept, and fix the refund process |
| The goods were delivered, signed for, and match the order | Contest with evidence |
| The customer says they did not make the purchase, but the order history says otherwise | Contest with evidence |
| The item was faulty and the customer told you before disputing | Usually better to resolve with the customer |
Accepting a chargeback you cannot win saves time for the ones you can. Where a refund was due anyway, refunds, voids and store credit covers how to handle it properly next time.
The clock is measured in working hours
Flutterwave's documentation gives merchants 10 working hours from notification to respond to a chargeback on a local transaction, and 30 working hours on an international one. That is stated for transactions processed through Flutterwave; check your own provider's deadline, which may be different. Either way, it is short.
Practical consequences:
- Someone must read the provider's e-mails every working day, not only the owner.
- The evidence must already exist before the chargeback arrives; there is no time to chase a courier for a waybill.
- A named person decides, so the response is not held up waiting for a meeting.
How the deadlines and stages run end to end is covered in the chargeback dispute timeline.
Building one evidence file
Flutterwave asks merchants contesting a chargeback to combine all relevant documents into a single file labelled with the chargeback ID, in JPEG, JPG, PNG or PDF format and smaller than 8MB. One file, clearly named, read by someone at the bank who has never heard of your shop.
What to put in it, in this order:
- A short covering note: the order, the date, what was sent and why the shop believes value was provided.
- The receipt or invoice showing what the customer bought and paid.
- Proof of delivery: the courier waybill, tracking history and any signature or delivery photo.
- Customer communication: order confirmation, shipping notice and any messages from the customer.
- Order details that tie the customer to the purchase, such as the delivery address matching the billing address.
Keep it readable. A single PDF with a page for each item, in the order above, makes the reviewer's job easy.
Flutterwave's page on chargebacks explains how chargebacks arise on its transactions, how a merchant is notified and how to accept or contest one with evidence.
If the first round goes against you
Flutterwave describes pre-arbitration as the final opportunity to resolve a chargeback dispute before it escalates to arbitration, with room to submit new evidence. If the shop has something it did not include the first time, such as a delivery photo the courier sent late, this is where it goes. If it has nothing new, think carefully before going further.
Pulling the documents together in Achekam
The response itself goes through the payment provider's own process. What Achekam can do is keep the evidence ready to hand.
The payment record. A business can take Flutterwave payments on its invoices in ZAR, NGN, KES, GHS or USD, and each payment is re-verified with Flutterwave before it is recorded. So the invoice and its recorded payment are there to print for the file.
The receipt. For sales rung up on the till, the till receipt is a PDF made by the server from the posted sale, showing every payment, VAT by rate and the business's tax number. It can be printed, downloaded or e-mailed to the customer, and the same PDF goes into the evidence file.
Delivery proof and messages. Document Centre is a folder-based store where a business uploads files or whole folders, tags and searches them, and a new version keeps the earlier ones. A simple habit closes the gap that cost the shop in the opening example: when an online order ships, save the waybill and the shipping confirmation into a folder for that month, tagged with the order number. When a chargeback arrives, a search on the order number brings everything back together. For shops selling online without a full storefront, online orders without a storefront covers how those orders reach the books.
Set up the shipping-folder habit this week, and decide who in the shop will read the payment provider's e-mails every working day.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
