First dispute in Stripe

The "they admitted they just changed their mind" situation is actually one of the more winnable disputes, which is the frustrating part, because most people accept it without fighting.
Here is the thing. When the customer says it to you directly, that feels like proof, but the bank never sees that conversation. The bank only sees what you submit, and it is asking a specific question tied to the reason code, usually some version of "did the customer authorize this and receive what they paid for?"
For a "changed their mind" subscription chargeback, the evidence that actually wins is: the signup record showing they agreed to recurring billing with a timestamp, proof they accessed or used the product after the charge, and your refund and cancellation policy that they accepted at signup. Together that shows an active user who agreed to the terms and simply did not use the proper cancellation path. A bank reviewer who spends two minutes on the case can follow that story easily.
The 30-day money-back guarantee actually helps you here, not hurts you. It proves you offered them an easy, legitimate way to get their money back, and they chose to file a chargeback instead. That undercuts any claim that disputing was their only option.
You may not win every one, but "changed their mind" friendly fraud has a much higher win rate than people assume when the evidence is packaged to answer the bank's actual question instead of just explaining that the customer was unreasonable.

You could move on this 1 time but remember that if you go beyond a certain percentage of disputes, you may get blocked or suspended by the card provider and Stripe wont help much since they are just an aggregator.

I suggest you try to fight it with evidence that the customer indeed purchased your product and just changed their mind. You may not win but I have won a dispute like that. Wins are better than losses. It is not about the money. It is about protecting the reputation of your business.

hey man! I started a website last month and got to $200 in rev. Was super psyched, checked the Stripe a few days later... taa daaa. 3 chargebacks. :( That's 45 down the drain... not sure how to combat this yet, but if you have any ideas plz lmk

same, my gumroad account was abruptly suspended!

How much are the costs? Just the stripe processing fee? Or that plus some more?

What I learned is customers are lazy and easy for them to click on the 'dispute' button on their credit card web page than contacting you guys for a refund.

Sometimes they are afraid of contacting you than calling their bank directly.

I'd say:

1. Treat this as 'part' of the business, most likely you will keep encounter this once in a while (hopefully not), in e-commerce, almost 20% of items will be returned.

2. If you are using stripe, perhaps consider enroll in the chargeback protection program, it's a bit more on top of the transaction fee, but will cover any 'fraudulent' dispute. (Not all disputes are labeled as fraudulent and not fully covered).

Hey @gregory90

Just bad luck with a particular client, don't be upset.

It depends on a product and audience. In our case - B2B SaaS tool - chargebacks happen very, very rarely.

0.0078% from the total number of payments in our case, out of almost 200,000.

We won only 5 of 15.

At some point we've just stopped engaging in debating. We are writing an email, trying to understand the reason. If there is no answer, we simply accept the dispute. We are trying to save our time and nervous. It is ridiculous when the bank does not care that the client accepted your terms. What's the point?

A couple of ideas on how to reduce the likelihood:

• free trial
• do not ask for a card on the trial
• send an email a few days before recurrent charge (give time and link to cancel)
• do not change the price without confirmation from the client
• make sure that the invoice contains your email and phone number
• charge in the same currency as the price on your pricing page

By the way, I'm personally scared by the message like "100% money back, guaranteed" :)

Chargebacks are part of doing business online, and I believe Stripe mentions that on their website. How often you receive a chargeback depends on your business and your relationship with your customers, so communicating clearly with your customers reduces their frequency. Try not to worry about them. Submit evidence to fight the chargeback and move on.

I'll say something "controversial" - don't waste time and energy to fight back, as much as you want to. It's pointless. Better focus on building a better product and accept disputes.