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17 Comments

First dispute in Stripe

Yesterday, we received our first dispute on Stripe. I contacted the user who issued the chargeback, and they acknowledged that they simply "changed their mind" about the subscription purchase. We even have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so that was really not necessary.
It's frustrating that customers treat chargebacks as an easy way to get a refund, and we have to cover costs when we haven't done anything wrong. 😡

on June 13, 2023
  1. 1

    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.

    1. 1

      What is the percentage threshold for getting blocked? What could be the evidence that the customer indeed purchased my product and just changed their mind?

    2. 1

      I didn't know this; that's useful information. Initially, I wanted to provide evidence, but after watching Stripe's informational videos about disputes, they seemed to encourage accepting disputes, which is why I did it.

  2. 1

    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

    1. 1

      Hmm, that's a lot! What kind of app are you running?

  3. 1

    same, my gumroad account was abruptly suspended!

    1. 1

      Sorry to hear that :( What kind of app did you run?

  4. 1

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

    1. 2

      It's $20 per dispute + processing fee.

      1. 1

        daaaaaaaang, I'd me hella tilted too

  5. 1

    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).

    1. 1

      I didn't know Stripe has chargeback protection program, thank you, I'll check it out!

  6. 1

    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" :)

    1. 1

      We do most of these things already - it's first dispute in the 8 months or so, not so bad, but still it hurts that it's so unfair.

  7. 1

    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.

  8. 0

    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.

    1. 2

      That's what I did - I've just accepted the dispute, as I didn't want to give this subject any more time than necessary.

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