Chargeback management is the routine that decides whether a disputed card payment stays with your business or goes back to the cardholder. It has four parts: prevent the dispute, read the reason code, answer inside the deadline with matching evidence, and track the results so the same cause does not return. This guide covers each part for a business that sells online or across borders from Lithuania, and shows where your banking and payment setup helps.

DemivoltKeep Business Payments OrganizedDemivolt provides business accounts, payment solutions, and role-based user management for companies handling local and cross-border operations.Explore Demivolt

TL;DR

A chargeback is an evidence contest, not a search for the truth. The side with documents that match the reason code usually wins.
Missing the response deadline loses the case by default. Network windows are typically 30 to 45 days, and your acquirer’s internal date is earlier. Work to that date.
Build one evidence dossier per transaction type before the first dispute arrives.
Prevention beats recovery: clear descriptors, fast refunds, payee checks on bank transfers, and tight card controls on your own spending.
Track chargebacks monthly by reason code, product and channel. Treat the function as finance operations, not customer service.

What a chargeback is and who handles it
Why chargebacks matter for a Lithuanian business
Step 1: Read the reason code before anything else
Step 2: Respect the deadline
Step 3: Build an evidence dossier per transaction type
Step 4: Prevent disputes before they start
Step 5: Track results and treat it as an operations function
Our perspective
Where Demivolt fits
Common mistakes to avoid
FAQ
Sources

What a chargeback is and who handles it

A chargeback is a payment reversal that a cardholder starts through the issuing bank. The funds are pulled back from the merchant’s side of the transaction. The Visa guide for merchants and the Mastercard Chargeback Guide describe the same basic flow:

The cardholder disputes a charge with the issuing bank.
The issuer picks a reason code and sends the dispute through the card network to your acquirer or payment service provider.
You get a notice with a response date.
You either accept the loss or submit evidence (representment).
The issuer reviews it, and the case can escalate to the network for arbitration.

Your acquirer or payment service provider is your contact throughout. You do not deal with the card network directly, so the deadline, the format and the portal are set by that provider. Read their merchant terms before your first dispute, not after.

In Lithuania, payment institutions and banks are supervised by the Bank of Lithuania. It also offers a free, out-of-court dispute service for consumers and financial institutions. A published decision of the Bank of Lithuania shows how these files go: the outcome turned on whether the transaction details could be proved and whether requested clarifications were supplied. That decision comes from a consumer dispute, but the lesson holds for merchants. Documents decide, not impressions.

Why chargebacks matter for a Lithuanian business

Three facts set the context.

Fraud keeps growing in absolute terms. The joint EBA and ECB report put total payment fraud in the European Economic Area at €4.2 billion in 2024, up from €3.5 billion in 2023. The fraud rate by value stayed stable at around 0.002%. Strong customer authentication still works, but fraudsters are adapting to it.

Lithuania is not exempt. The Bank of Lithuania reported that the Lithuanian banking sector registered over 13,000 fraud cases worth about €20 million in 2024. It also pointed to payee verification as one way to fight payment fraud.

Cross-border selling raises exposure. Card payments where the recipient is outside the EEA, and so outside strong customer authentication rules, show much higher fraud rates according to the same ECB material. If you sell to customers in several countries, you will see more disputes than a purely domestic shop, and more variety in how they are filed.

For a small or mid-sized company, a few lost disputes a month can be a visible line in the P&L. They also bring fees from your provider, and a high dispute ratio can lead to monitoring or restrictions. Your acquirer’s terms describe the thresholds.

Step 1: Read the reason code before anything else

Every chargeback arrives with a reason code. It tells you what the issuer says went wrong and which evidence can answer it. The Chargeback Reason Code User Guide from one processor shows how many codes exist and how specific the requirements are.

A practical way to sort them is into two groups:

Fraud disputes, where the cardholder says they did not make the purchase. Liability often follows network rules, such as whether the payment was authenticated. Shipping proof rarely helps here, because the claim is about who paid, not whether the goods arrived.
Service and delivery disputes, where the cardholder says the goods never came, were defective, were not as described, or a refund was promised and not paid. Here your evidence can change the outcome.

Sending shipping proof to a fraud dispute wastes time. Sending authentication data to a non-delivery claim does the same. Match the document to the code.

What matches which claim

Claim	Evidence that usually matters
Cardholder says they did not make the purchase	Proof of authentication, device and IP data, past undisputed orders from the same customer, delivery to a verified address
Goods or services not received	Carrier tracking with delivery confirmation, signed receipt, or logs showing the digital product was accessed or downloaded
Not as described or defective	Product description as shown at checkout, terms accepted, communication history, return policy
Refund promised but not received	Refund record with date and reference, or the refund policy the customer accepted
Subscription cancelled but still charged	Cancellation policy, date of cancellation request, billing history, reminders sent
Duplicate charge	Two separate order records showing two distinct purchases

The Visa guide says that successful responses focus on linking the transaction to the cardholder, showing the cardholder took part in or benefited from the purchase, and showing the transaction was valid. Build your dossier around those three ideas.

Step 2: Respect the deadline

The most expensive mistake is a late response. Network guidance puts merchant response windows at 30 to 45 days, depending on network and reason code. After that date the case is lost by default: you lose the sale and usually the goods.

Two cautions:

Your date is not the network’s date. Acquirers set an earlier internal date so they can process your submission. Use the date in your provider’s portal or notice, and treat it as the last day to be uploaded, not the day to start.
The clock can start before you see the notice. Make sure chargeback emails go to a monitored shared mailbox, not to one person’s inbox.

A 72-hour routine

A fixed routine keeps cases from stalling. A small finance team can run it like this:

Hour 0 to 4: log it. Record the case in a shared tracker with amount, reason code, order ID, response date and owner.
Hour 4 to 24: decide. Is the claim winnable? Check the reason code, the order record and whether a refund was already issued. If the loss is small and the claim is valid, accepting it can cost less than the time spent.
Hour 24 to 48: assemble. Pull the dossier for that transaction type, remove anything irrelevant, and write a short cover note that references the reason code and lists each attachment.
Hour 48 to 72: submit and confirm. Upload through the provider’s channel, keep the confirmation, and set a reminder to check the outcome.

This leaves most of the response window unused, which is the point. Use it for escalation, not for the first draft.

Step 3: Build an evidence dossier per transaction type

Chargeback systems work as evidence-management systems. Quality counts for more than quantity: clear, relevant and concise documents tied to the reason code beat a pile of attachments. The Mastercard guide stresses documentation in this way.

Prepare a template for each product line. A typical dossier holds:

Order record: date, time, amount, currency, items, customer name and email.
Payment record: authorization code, transaction ID, authentication result.
Technical data: IP address, device identifier, login history, relevant server logs.
Delivery proof: carrier confirmation for goods, access or download logs for digital goods, session records for services.
Terms shown at checkout: refund and cancellation policy, with proof the customer accepted them.
Customer communication: emails, support tickets, chat transcripts.
Refund history: if you refunded, the date and reference.

Store these automatically as orders happen. Rebuilding logs 40 days later is slow and sometimes impossible.

Write the cover note

Keep it to one page. State the reason code, state in one sentence why the claim does not apply, then list the evidence in the order it answers the claim. Reviewers read many cases a day. A reviewer who can match your first paragraph to the reason code in ten seconds is a reviewer you have helped.

Step 4: Prevent disputes before they start

Most chargebacks are cheaper to prevent than to win. The measures below are practical for SMEs.

Make the charge recognizable

A cardholder who does not recognize a line on a statement often calls the bank instead of you. Use a billing descriptor that matches your trading name and website, and put your support contact on receipts and order confirmations.

Make refunds easier than disputes

If a refund takes one email and three days, few customers will go to their bank. Publish the refund policy at checkout, acknowledge requests within one business day, and send confirmation with a reference when a refund is issued.

Use authentication, and do not rely on it alone

Strong customer authentication has reduced fraud in online card payments. Still, the 2025 EBA and ECB assessment notes that fraudsters adapt to the system, exploiting exemptions or manipulating customers into approving payments. Techniques such as MFA fatigue attacks show how repeated prompts can wear a person down until they approve. Pair authentication with velocity limits, address checks, manual review for unusual orders and clear internal alerts.

Watch for patterns

A cluster of disputes on one product, one country or one traffic source points to a cause: a misleading product page, a slow carrier, or a fraud ring. Fix the cause and the dispute count falls.

Consider the payment method

Card payments carry chargeback rights. Bank transfers work differently: a SEPA credit transfer is initiated by the payer and does not follow the card dispute process. For B2B invoices, customers in the euro area and larger tickets, offering a bank transfer to a dedicated IBAN can remove card dispute exposure for that sale. Consumers keep their legal rights, and PSD2 sets rules for refunds and liability in payment transactions, so check the rules that apply to your sales.

Transfers carry their own risk. The wrong payee, or a fraudster posing as one, is the main one. This is why the Bank of Lithuania recommends payee verification. For more on how fast transfers settle and where delays arise, see our note on SEPA cut-off times.

Step 5: Track results and treat it as an operations function

Chargeback management belongs to finance operations. Build a monthly report with:

Number and value of chargebacks.
Dispute ratio against transactions for the month.
Reason code split.
Win rate on cases you contested.
Average time from notice to submission.
Cost per case, including fees and staff time.

Review it with whoever owns product, support and fraud rules. If you are choosing between more fraud staff and better tooling, our news summary on merchants freezing fraud staff while tech budgets rise gives context for the trade-off. Systems that record payment events cleanly also help, for example reliable payment webhooks, because your dossier depends on accurate timestamps and statuses.

Our perspective

We run regulated business banking and payment infrastructure, and we see chargebacks as a records problem as much as a fraud problem. The businesses that handle them calmly share a few habits. Their payment data is organized, their account structure separates functions, and nobody has to search through inboxes to find proof.

That is where banking setup matters. Separate accounts for separate revenue lines make it simple to see which product produces disputes and what its cash flow looks like. Role-based access means finance staff can see transactions while only authorized people can approve outgoing payments. Dedicated IBANs let B2B customers pay by transfer, with fees you can read in advance. Segregated client funds and a regulated onboarding process mean your counterparties and your auditors see a clean setup.

We also see the other side of cards. If your team spends on business cards, the same discipline applies in reverse: limits, merchant controls and clear ownership reduce disputes you must file as a cardholder. Our guide to travel card controls aligned with EU SCA shows how to set that up.

Our advice: write the dossier templates this month, assign one owner for deadlines, and review reason codes monthly. None of it requires new software to begin with.

— dd

Where Demivolt fits

Demivolt does not replace your card acquirer or the dispute process. What we provide is the banking layer around it: business accounts with dedicated IBANs, multi-account structures and role management, payments over SEPA and SWIFT, and card programmes with virtual and physical Visa business cards. Account opening, account verification, a dedicated client manager and monthly maintenance are listed at 0 on our site.

The transfer fees below are the published ones, in euros per transfer:

Payment type	Fee
SEPA In	0 €
SEPA Out	0.40 €
SWIFT In	25.00 €
SWIFT Out	30.00 €

You can check outgoing SEPA costs with the SEPA fee calculator. To open an account for your company, get started on demivolt.com or contact us. Advisors who work with clients on payments can look at our partner and agency models.

Common mistakes to avoid

Fighting everything. Contest cases you can document. Accept small, clearly valid claims and fix the cause.
Sending too much. Dozens of pages hide the one that matters. Attach what answers the code.
Ignoring refunds already issued. If you refunded and the customer still disputed, show the refund record first.
Using one inbox. Deadlines get missed when one person is on leave.
Not reading the contract. Fees, thresholds and internal dates differ between providers.
Treating fraud claims like delivery claims. The evidence differs.

FAQ

How long do I have to respond to a chargeback?

Network guidance typically gives merchants 30 to 45 days, depending on the network and reason code, as described in the Mastercard Chargeback Guide. Your acquirer or payment provider sets an earlier internal date. Use the date in your notice.

Can I win a chargeback for a fraud claim?

Sometimes. Evidence that links the transaction to the cardholder, such as authentication data, device and IP records, and a history of undisputed orders, is what counts. Liability often depends on network rules, so check the reason code and your provider’s guidance first.

Does the Bank of Lithuania handle chargebacks?

It supervises Lithuanian banks and payment institutions and runs a free dispute service for consumers and financial institutions. Its decisions are recommendations. It does not act as the card network’s arbitrator, so the card dispute process runs through your provider first.

Do bank transfers have chargebacks?

Not in the card-network sense. A SEPA credit transfer is pushed by the payer and has no card dispute process. Legal refund and liability rules still apply under PSD2, and wrong-payee fraud is a real risk, so verify payees where you can.

Chargeback Management for Businesses in Lithuania