[Account Owner] Disputed Payments

Dispute Information and What it Means

Disputes are an unfortunate part of accepting payments online, but the good news is that they're generally uncommon.  A dispute (aka chargeback) occurs when a cardholder questions your payment with their card issuer (for example: Discover, Mastercard, Visa, etc.). 

The issuer then creates a formal dispute, which immediately reverses the payment and deducts it from your firm's bank account balance. A separate $15.00 dispute fee levied by the card network is also deducted at this time.

Since we work and are partnered with Stripe, our underlying payment processor, this is the process for credit card disputes:

There's a dispute resolution process that we can help you respond to and submit evidence to make your case that the payment was valid. (Please note there's a $15.00 dispute fee for submitting evidence but AdvicePay will credit the firm and request authorization to submit evidence before doing so).

• If the dispute is found in your favor, the disputed amount is returned to you along with the $15.00 dispute fee.
• If a dispute is upheld, the card issuer’s decision is final, and the cardholder’s payment + $15.00 dispute fee will remain with the client and card issuer. 

We're unable to manage/refund these fees on our end, so we recommend that if at all possible, advisors challenge the dispute and submit any evidence -- as outlined below -- that can impact the decision in their favor of keeping the funds.

Working with your Client

If a dispute has been filed by your client (or their spouse or bank for fraud protection) , we recommend the following:

1. Reach out to the client regarding the disputed payment
2. Ask the client whether they'd be willing to reverse it with their credit card company
3. Acquire a letter from the credit card company stating that they withdrew the dispute (if possible)
4. Submit the letter to us, so we can submit it with all the evidence on your behalf to our payment processor, Stripe, before the evidence submission deadline

Our experience has been that as long as your client withdraws their dispute and we submit the evidence from their credit card company, you should expect to win, though this is not guaranteed.

If, for any reason, your client doesn't receive the letter from their credit card company before the deadline, in the meantime, they can also submit:

• A personal letter stating the facts of the dispute and their withdrawal, and/or the mistake in the dispute
• Screenshots of any email/online communication with their credit card company requesting a reversal
• Screenshots of the dispute reversal as reflected on their online credit card statement

In these cases, you can also submit the client's signed financial agreement as evidence!

Types of Disputes

Clients may dispute a payment by mistake, or due to the services not being what they expected or agreed upon in their view. We're here to help explain how these are considered and how we can help!

Accidental Disputes

The most common reasons why clients dispute a payment they've made for advisory services through AdvicePay are by accident likely one of the following circumstances:

• they forget they've paid for the service, so they tell their card issuer they don't recognize it or
• they or someone they've authorized on the account (e.g., a spouse) don't recognize the charge.

In many cases, the client will reach out to their card issuer and request a reversal, but these don't always happen in real time, or within the time frame of the dispute. The best form of action in these instances is to collect as much evidence from your client to submit the evidence if by the due date the reversal hasn't been pulled back.

When Clients Dispute Your Services

A client could also dispute a payment, saying that they didn't receive the service or that the service received was not as described. Here are a few ways you can respond:

1. First, get in touch with your client. If you understand why they filed the dispute, there is a chance for you to explain the misunderstanding or to make it right.

Having your client withdraw the dispute is by far the best way for you to make sure a dispute is resolved in your favor. However, whether they agree to do this or not, you should still submit evidence for the dispute. 

2. Next, we encourage you to provide us with a copy of your contract and any other evidence that shows they [did intend to pay for your services / did receive the services agreed upon], and we will submit it to Stripe on your behalf.

Just as in the case of "accidental" disputes, Stripe will automatically refund your client when they dispute a charge, and the money + $15 dispute fee will come out of your firm's transfer bank account. 

If the dispute is resolved in your favor, then the original charge, as well as the dispute fee, will automatically be reimbursed to you. If you lose the dispute, then you will not be reimbursed.

Deadline for Evidence Submissions

Every dispute will have a deadline to submit evidence to Stripe. All evidence can only be submitted altogether and once. When we reach out about a dispute, we inform you of this due date right away. It's important to get all evidence in on time by the due date.

When will I know the Dispute Results?

Disputes, once evidence is submitted, can take 12 weeks for the banks/credit card companies to communicate with each other and fully resolve the issue with a response.

Once the response is submitted to our payment processor Stripe, an automated email goes out for the case in whether it won or lost, and where the funds will remain. In addition, our support team also sends a follow-up email to share this in case you miss the automated one!

How to Prevent Disputes

It makes sense to invest in dispute prevention efforts, as it takes less time and energy compared to responding to a dispute once it's already happened. 

One of the ways we help reduce invalid fraud disputes is by sharing what the charge may look like on their statements. While we set charges made through our app to default to the description of the firm name, banks and credit card companies have ultimate control over this and don't always honor that.

Therefore, clients may find that the charge appears as a variety of things depending on their particular card issuer and what they choose to pull in for the service description. This can be AdvicePay, Stripe, or Stripe.com (which is our underlying payment processor), AdvPay, or even a variation of the account owner representative's name.

Additional measures that can be taken to help your client recognize AdvicePay & Stripe for payment are below:

• Introduce them to AdvicePay when they begin, and invite them to create an account through the invitation link you sent them via email. If they aren't sure about a charge, they'll be able to see all documents, invoices, and subscriptions that are paid or actively billing. They can even use the beacon in their account(bottom right) to ask us for support!
• Communicate to clients about the AdvicePay platform, and share that we partner with our payment processor Stripe. Make them aware that charges made through the site default to your firm name; banks and credit card companies don't always honor that. That being said, they may find that the charge on their statement appears as AdvicePay, Stripe, or Stripe.com.
• Advise clients that it can be helpful to save or print out their invoices, then refer to them when reviewing their monthly statement.
• If desirable, set invoices to accept ACH only and share our Stripe IDs with their bank to recognize the charges when they pay them. This will prevent fraud alerts as well. Generally, it's much more difficult to dispute ACH authorized payments compared to credit cards.

Some bank accounts require approval from Stripe if they have particular fraud or debit restriction measures in place. These are four numbers you can give to your bank to approve for both receiving and making payments to AdvicePay:

• For receiving payments(if the firm performs a refund) via ACH: Stripe’s ACH company IDs: WFMSTRIPE1 - Stripe Inc., and 1800948598 - Stripe Payments Company
• For making payments (to pay for financial services) via ACH: 4270465600 - Stripe Inc., and 1800948598 - Stripe Payments Company

At any time if you have questions about a dispute, please feel free to use the beacon bottom right in your account, email support@advicepay.com, or reply to the dispute email. We're happy to help with the process and any questions you might have for either decision.