The Chargeback Manager brings your disputes into one clear, centralized view, giving your team full visibility into chargebacks created in Stripe and exactly where each one stands.
With dispute details, timelines, and required documentation all in one place, Chargeback Manager takes the chaos out of chargebacks so you can respond faster, recover more revenue, and protect your studio with confidence.
What is a chargeback?
A chargeback is a reversal of funds following a debit or credit card purchase, initiated when the customer files a dispute with their bank or credit card provider. The most common chargebacks fall into a few categories. Understanding why customers dispute charges is the first step to reducing how often it happens.
Legitimate fraud: Unauthorized transactions made without the cardholder’s knowledge.
Friendly fraud: Non-fraud disputes, such as unrecognized charges, delivery issues, or customers bypassing return policies.
Billing errors: Duplicate charges, incorrect amounts, or charges that continue after a cancellation.
Chargebacks happen after a payment is completed and appears on a customer’s statement. Once a charge is disputed, it follows a standard review process.
Customer files a dispute: The cardholder reports a charge to their issuing bank as fraudulent or incorrect.
Bank initiates the chargeback: The issuing bank formally opens the chargeback process.
The cardholder bank retrieves funds from Stripe.
Stripe recovers funds from the studio.
Business can respond: The studio is notified and may submit evidence to refute the dispute.
The email will include a link to the chargeback manager.
Bank reviews and decides: The issuing bank evaluates both sides and determines the outcome.
Outcome: If the studio wins, charges, including fees, are returned. If the customer wins, the charge and fees are not returned.
Once evidence is submitted, it may take several months for an outcome.
Chargeback Manager
Chargeback Manager is located in the left-hand navigation in Mariana Tek. It shows chargebacks for a specific location, so select your location first. If you manage multiple locations, you will need to review Chargeback Manager for each location separately.
The Stripe dispute email notifications are sent to the individual configured during your onboarding. It is not sent to all admins to avoid overloading inboxes. To ensure the email is sent to the correct user, add the user to your Stripe dashboard and contact support to finalize.
For each dispute, you will see:
Responded by: The date evidence needs to be submitted
Disputed on: The date the customer filed the dispute
Status
Action Required: Studio needs to counter or accept the dispute
Closed: The dispute is no longer active, and evidence can no longer be submitted for that specific case
Under review: Stripe is reviewing the submitted evidence
Won: Indicates that the bank decided in your favor and overturned the dispute. The issuing bank returns the debited chargeback amount to Stripe, and Stripe passes this amount back to you.
Lost: Indicates that the bank decided in the account owner’s favor and upheld the dispute. In this case, the refund is permanent, and the dispute fee isn’t returned.
Reason: Why the dispute has been filed
From: Customer's email
Disputed amount
Filters
Disputes can be filtered by:
Reason
Status
Amount
Disputed date
Responded by
Counter or Accept Disputes
For disputes with the Action required status, click on them to counter or accept. Before taking action:
Review the claim details, including
Payment details
Payment method details
The card owner might not match the customer's account. For example, if a student is using a parent's credit card.
Timeline
Email your customer to understand that they filed the dispute.
If your customer agrees to withdraw this dispute, follow this guide.
Regardless of what happens between you and your customer, you still need to submit evidence if you want to win the dispute.
For disputes with a high likelihood of winning, you can generally submit evidence to fight it without reaching out to your customer. For low-value disputes, you can accept the dispute if you don’t want to invest time and resources to fight it.
Counter or accept the dispute
Once a chargeback is created, you typically have only 7–21 days to submit evidence, depending on the card network. Miss the deadline, and the cardholder automatically wins and keeps the funds.
Counter Dispute
If you wish to fight the dispute, select Counter Dispute. Fill in the following and click Next:
We recommend collecting the following information before beginning the dispute:
Open the customer's profile in another tab
Locate reservation history
Receipts
Renewal reminder emails
Signed waivers and purchase agreements
If you are not utilizing purchase agreements, we encourage you to add them to your flow, as it provides stronger leverage when fighting disputes.
Customer communication
Cancelation confirmation emails with dates included
Shipping documentation
Choose the primary reason you believe the issuing bank should overturn this dispute:
Stripe is taking an evidence-based approach in helping you to resolve disputes, so please carefully select an answer option that best defines your case. For example, if the reason is subscription canceled, avoid using Other and select one of the following:
The cardholder withdrew the dispute
The cardholder was refunded
The customer received the product or service
It was disclosed before payment that the purchase was non-refundable
Other: Add your reason
To maximize your chances of winning the dispute, avoid the other option whenever possible.
Product Description: Describe the product or service involved in this dispute. Include the SKU or product name to show that this charge was valid. This information should match a receipt if possible.
What type of product or service is this?
Physical product
Shipping/Billing Address
Tracking number
Shipping date
Carrier
Digital product or service
Access activity log: Any record of them logging into the product
Offline service
Service date
Event
When did the event happen?
Booking or reservation
Booking or reservation start date
Optional: Booking or reservation end date
Other:
Description
Additional Details
Confirm the customer details are correct and click Next.
Collect evidence
Submit any relevant evidence. Based on your previous response, the system will recommend what type of evidence to submit.
Files can be JPG, PDF, or PNG, and the total size can't exceed 4.5MB.
Upload the files > select a category for each file > add any additional information > Review.
Review
Review and submit all evidence to the customer's bank. Select I understand I can only submit evidence to the customer's bank once > Submit.
Once submitted, additional evidence can't be added.
The status will be changed to in review and could take several months to complete.
Accept Dispute
If you choose to accept the dispute, this means that you believe the customer is correct in disputing the payment. Select Accept dispute. At this point:
You will not be able to recover the disputed funds
The dispute will be labeled as a dispute lost
Once accepted, you can't reverse your decision.
Outcome
Once a decision has been made, the status of the dispute will be updated to:
Won: The funds will be returned to the studio, and no fee will be applied.
Lost: The funds remain with the customer, and a fee will be applied.
An email will be sent to the studio contact. The outcome is final. Neither you nor your customer can overturn a lost dispute.