Chargeback

A card dispute where the issuer reverses a transaction and pulls funds back from the acquirer on behalf of the cardholder.

When this matters

You are monitoring fraud and customer dissatisfaction.
You are approaching scheme thresholds for dispute ratios.
You are designing refund, support, and evidence workflows.

Operator tips

Track chargebacks by reason code and segment to spot fixable patterns.
Align refund policies and support playbooks to prevent unnecessary disputes.
Keep evidence templates and timelines standardised so operations can respond consistently.

How to use this term

Use this definition when you are aligning stakeholders across product, engineering, finance, and operations. Shared vocabulary makes it much easier to argue about tradeoffs without talking past each other.

For deeper context, pair this term with the free assessment and providers/methods directories. They give you a concrete view of how concepts show up in real stacks.