Overview

When a customer disputes a credit card payment with their bank, a chargeback is opened. This article walks through what happens at each step of that process — what the card networks do, what Payrix and TeamSideline do automatically, and what your organization needs to do and when.

Important: Chargebacks are governed entirely by the card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express) and the cardholder's issuing bank. TeamSideline and Payrix do not decide the outcome and cannot overturn a final decision. Our role is to facilitate the payment processing and pass your evidence to the card network. The process is designed to protect the cardholder, and funds are returned to them by default unless you contest the dispute successfully.

Step 1: The cardholder files a dispute with their bank

The process starts outside of TeamSideline. The cardholder contacts their issuing bank and disputes a charge — commonly for reasons such as:

• Fraudulent transaction / no cardholder authorization (e.g., reason code 4837)
• Merchandise or services not received (e.g., reason code 13.1)
• Not as described / defective
• Incorrect account number (e.g., reason code 12.4)

The reason code matters — it determines what evidence will actually address the dispute.

Step 2: The disputed funds are held, and a dispute fee is assessed

As soon as the chargeback is opened:

• Payrix temporarily removes the disputed amount from your Payrix account balance. Those funds are held until the dispute is resolved, so they will not be included in your next settlement/deposit.
• A chargeback dispute fee of $20.00 per dispute is assessed by Payrix.
• On your settlement reports, the held amount and the fee appear together as a Payrix Adjustment (for example: a $226.79 chargeback + $20.00 dispute fee = a $246.79 Payrix Adjustment).

Do not issue a refund to the customer while a chargeback is open. The money has already been removed from your account and held — refunding separately would give the customer the money twice.

Step 3: You are notified

Two kinds of notifications are commonly sent:

• A Payrix dispute notification email ("You have a new Dispute" / "You have a new notification on a dispute") sent to the email address(es) configured for Payrix alerts. It lists the Transaction ID, Merchant ID, Dispute Case ID, Chargeback Amount, Dispute Date, Response Due Date, Reason, Cycle, and Status.
• A TeamSideline email such as "A Chargeback Has Been Opened | [Order #]", which identifies the customer, transaction date, order number and amount, and directs you to log in at payments.teamsideline.com to respond.

If the right people at your organization are not receiving these emails, review your Payrix email alerts (we recommend enabling Chargebacks – All). See How to set up your Payrix Notifications.

Step 4: Review the dispute in the Payrix portal

1. Log in at payments.teamsideline.com. (Access is tied to your organization's Payrix users — if you cannot log in, contact TeamSideline Support to confirm who is set up as the account owner/users.)
2. Go to Disputes and open the case using the Dispute Case ID.
3. Review the current dispute stage, the reason code, the response due date, and the required action.

Step 5: Choose to accept liability or submit evidence

You will generally have two options:

• Accept Liability (concede) — choose this if the chargeback is legitimate or you do not want to contest it. The funds stay with the cardholder.
• Submit Documentation / Evidence (respond) — choose this if you believe the charge was valid and you can support that.

Deciding whether to contest is a business decision for your organization. Support's general guidance: if the participant paid and genuinely did not receive the service, the money would normally go back to them; if they did receive the service or agreed to a policy that covers the situation, contesting is worthwhile.

Step 6: Build and submit your evidence

Gather documentation that speaks directly to the reason code. Commonly useful items:

• The order/registration confirmation — open the customer's account in TeamSideline, click the spyglass icon next to the order, and save it as a PDF.
• The Account Statement — use the Account Statement button on the customer's account.
• Your refund/cancellation policy, ideally as a signed Terms & Conditions the customer explicitly agreed to during registration.
• Email or other communication with the customer relevant to the dispute.
• Proof of services delivered (rosters, team placement, schedules, uniform orders, etc.).

Then:

1. Upload the documents in the dispute in the Payrix portal.
2. Write a short, clear written response that states what the transaction was for, addresses the dispute reason directly, and references each document attached.
3. Submit well before the response due date. Deadlines are strict. Missing the deadline does not legally mean you accepted liability, but the dispute will almost certainly be decided in the cardholder's favor by default.
4. Attach everything before you press Submit. Once evidence has been submitted and the case shows as Closed in the portal, additional evidence generally cannot be added.

Tip from past cases: a refund policy pasted as text in a program description is often not enough. Card networks look for proof the customer explicitly agreed to it — attach your refund policy to a Terms & Conditions that customers must accept during registration.

Step 7: Waiting for the decision, and understanding the status

Review timelines are controlled by the issuing bank and card network — neither TeamSideline nor Payrix can speed them up. Reviews can take several weeks.

• Open — the dispute is active and may require your response.
• Closed — there is no pending action on this dispute cycle right now. "Closed" does not tell you who won, and it does not by itself mean the cardholder was refunded or that your evidence was accepted. If a response due date is still in the future, check the dispute in the portal to see whether you can still act.
• Lost — the dispute was decided in the cardholder's favor.

Step 8a: If the chargeback is decided in the cardholder's favor (lost)

Several things happen automatically — you do not need to issue a refund:

• The disputed funds are returned to the cardholder by Payrix.
• The chargeback amount is deducted from your Payrix balance (netted into a settlement as a Payrix Adjustment).
• TeamSideline automatically adds a Misc. Debit to the customer's account equal to the disputed amount, so the original balance is owed again. Do not add a chargeback transaction manually — the system does this for you.
• You receive a "Chargeback Resolved in Customer's Favor | [Order #]" email.

Your options at that point:

1. Collect the balance — ask the customer to log in to their TeamSideline account and use the Balance Due button to pay, and follow your organization's normal collections process.
2. Write it off — from the Admin Site Map go to Account Management > Search, open the customer's Account Overview, click Add Transaction, select Misc. Credit, and enter the amount needed to bring the balance to $0.

Step 8b: If the chargeback is decided in your organization's favor

The held funds are restored to your Payrix account and appear as a Payrix Adjustment on a later settlement, which is why a deposit may not match the transaction total for that period. No action is needed on the customer's account.

Step 9: If the dispute moves to another stage

Not every chargeback goes through every stage, but a dispute may progress through:

1. First Chargeback — the customer disputes the transaction; you accept liability or submit evidence.
2. Representment — you submit evidence contesting the chargeback.
3. Pre-Arbitration — the cardholder or their bank continues the dispute after your response (often meaning your evidence was judged insufficient).
4. Arbitration — the card network makes a final decision.

Each new stage is treated as a new dispute cycle with its own deadline, and evidence from an earlier stage does not automatically carry over. You must re-submit your documentation at each stage you choose to contest. Note that escalating to arbitration can carry card-brand fees that may exceed a small disputed amount — weigh the cost before proceeding.

Step 10: Where to see chargebacks in your reports

All financial reporting is available in your TeamSideline admin site — you do not need to log in to Payrix for reporting:

• Reports > Report Viewer — Settlements – Payrix and Settlements By Date Range – Payrix
• Reports > Report Exports — Settlement Detail, Settlement Item Detail, Settlement Item Split Detail

Chargebacks and their $20 dispute fees are assessed at the account level, so they appear in the Payrix Adjustments line rather than in the per-transaction Fees column. For a full walkthrough, see Reconciling Payrix Settlements: Reading Your Financial Reports and What is a Payrix Adjustment?

Common questions

• Should I refund the customer instead? No — not while a dispute is open. The funds are already held.
• The customer says they withdrew the dispute, but Payrix still shows it as lost. Once the card network finalizes a decision, TeamSideline and Payrix cannot modify or overturn it. The cardholder should contact their issuing bank directly for clarification.
• Can TeamSideline upload evidence for me? Support can pass documentation to Payrix on your behalf, but it cannot be accepted after the response deadline or after the case is closed in the portal. Always submit through the portal yourself and well before the deadline.
• How do I reduce chargebacks? Use a Terms & Conditions that customers must explicitly accept at registration, state your refund/cancellation policy clearly, and respond to customer emails promptly — unanswered refund requests frequently become chargebacks.

Possibly related existing article: Understanding and Responding to Chargebacks — https://support.teamsideline.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035000592-Understanding-and-Responding-to-Chargebacks — That article covers what a chargeback is, the four dispute stages, and how to respond. This draft is still needed because it documents the end-to-end TeamSideline/Payrix process at each step — funds being held, the $20 dispute fee and Payrix Adjustment, the notification emails, the automatic Misc. Debit and Balance Due follow-up after a loss, and where chargebacks appear in reports — which are the questions support answers most often. Reviewer decision needed: publish as a companion article, or merge this content into article 360035000592 and retire this draft.