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How to deal with chargebacks

Great customer care can help avoid and address chargebacks.

When you add the Amazon Pay button to your site, millions of Amazon shoppers will expect the same high-quality customer experience from your site as they get from Amazon.

To help you with this task, our five-part series explains our best practices and top tips on how you too can offer your shoppers a high-quality customer experience. We talked about the value of good customer service and the first steps to take toward achieving it, customer-friendly refund and return policies, and the Amazon Pay A-to-z Guarantee. Now we’ll explain how to deal with chargebacks.

What is a chargeback?

A chargeback is a reversal of payment issued by the bank or credit card issuer, when a shopper disputes a charge through their bank or credit card issuer (and not through Amazon Pay). A chargeback can occur when a shopper has not received the items they purchased, has been charged multiple times for a single purchase, or is dissatisfied with the purchase, and they have not been able to resolve the matter with the merchant.

If a shopper cannot resolve their issue with you, they typically contact their bank or credit card issuer to request a chargeback. The bank will then notify the credit card issuer, who will in turn notify us.

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Keep in mind that if a shopper files a chargeback, the bank or credit card issuer will take the lead in resolving the issue. As part of the process, Amazon will present the relevant information you have provided to us.

If you choose to dispute the chargeback via Amazon Pay, you will need to respond to the email from Amazon Pay and provide the information in support of your case.

Please see the Chargeback FAQ for more details.

Note:

  • This information applies only to chargebacks that are not covered by our Payment Protection Policy. Under our Payment Protection Policy in the Amazon Payments User Agreement — Merchant Accounts, we will not hold you liable for chargebacks and we will not collect a disputed chargeback fee if you and the transactions meet all the requirements of the policy.
  • If you process a manual refund after a chargeback is filed but before it is resolved, there is a possibility that the bank or credit card issuer may still issue a refund directly to the shopper, which can result in a “double” refund. You can check the status of chargebacks at any time in Seller Central.

How to respond to a chargeback claim

When a shopper contacts their bank or credit card company to request a chargeback, the bank or credit card company contacts Amazon Pay to request details about the transaction. In turn, Amazon Pay contacts you via email to request transaction information. You can also receive an Instant Payment Notification (IPN) message if you have set up IPNs in Seller Central.

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You can respond to a chargeback notification in one of two ways:

  • By choosing to dispute the chargeback via Amazon Pay: To dispute the chargeback, you need to respond to the email from Amazon Pay and provide the information in support of your case. For a list of the required information, see What information do you need from me in order to dispute a chargeback?
  • By choosing to accept the chargeback: If you choose to accept the chargeback, you need to notify Amazon Pay to agree that the amount will be debited from your account. If you do not respond to the chargeback notification within 11 calendar days, we will debit your Amazon Pay account for the chargeback amount.

Note: You must respond to any chargeback notification within 11 calendar days of the email notification date. If you do not respond to a notification within that time frame, we will debit your account for the transaction amount. You will also need to reply to any additional requests for information within the time frame stated in the request.

See also:

Read the next post on customer service best practices.