Important Note: We will send email notifications regarding a client payment dispute to the email addresses listed under Settings → Payments → Notification. Depending on the payment method used, you may be able to challenge the dispute:
For ACH disputes, these cannot be contested (as per the ACH schemes regulations) and will always be automatically resolved in the clients favour. You will have to resolve these disputes directly with your client.
For credit card disputes, we will contact you via email when a dispute is raised and send a follow-up via email if we don't receive a response from our first email in 2 business days. If we still don't hear back after our second email, we can no longer submit evidence to our payment provider which means you will need to settle the dispute directly with the client.
We highly recommend add all relevant email address in the Payments → Notification field and checking their email inboxes on a timely basis so you don't miss a dispute notification.
For practices that are receiving disputes for the first time, one of our Key Account Managers will reach out to you first. For future points of contact, we will communicate through the emails address listed in the Payment Notification field.
Dispute Overview
A ‘disputed transaction’ can arise for a variety of reasons. The most common types of disputed transactions include fraudulent transactions, unrecognised transactions, unauthorised transactions, duplicate processing, and recurring transactions.
Avoiding Payment Disputes by your Clients
Disputes are a very rare occurrence, but there are a few things you can do to decrease your chances of a client disputing a payment made by you:
Ensure your payment descriptor clearly identifies your business. You are limited to 16 characters, so consider this when selecting a payment descriptor if you have a long business name.
Ensure you always have an up-to-date and accurate engagement letter signed by your client. Avoid "accepting on behalf" unless you have confirmation in writing from your client of the agreement to charges.
Avoid entering payment "on behalf of" your client unless you have written consent to charge their account/card.
Send payment receipts to clients emails following payment collection. Ignition can send these automatically for you.
Receiving a Payment Dispute Notification From Us
We will inform you (the email address listed in the Payment Notification field) about the client payment dispute via email.
The ACH network allows 60 days for consumers to contest a debit on their account and these disputes cannot be contested. You should reach out to your client to resolve the reason for the dispute.
Should you receive a credit card dispute notification, please respond immediately to our email. Failure to do so may result to a legitimate charge back against your account.
You can respond to a credit card dispute notification in two ways:
Accept the dispute
Challenge the dispute by submitting evidence
Please reply back to our notification in either case as to which you would like to do.
Submitting Evidence
If you choose to challenge a credit card dispute, we will ask you to:
Contact your client to try to resolve the dispute. It is possible that the client did not recognise the transaction and can contact their bank to withdraw the dispute
Submit evidence (as requested by our payment provider) as to the validity of the charge. We will send you a follow-up email in case of non-submission if you have
You will need to provide evidence for every credit card dispute you wish to challenge, even if the client has advised you that they will be withdrawing the dispute.
While we always encourage you to contact your client to withdraw the dispute, some clients might not be able to or might simply forget to withdraw a dispute. This is where evidence submission will be important to challenge the dispute.
Below are the different dispute types and the suggested documents you can submit as evidence as recommended by our payment provider.
Key to us being able to provide this information is having an up-to-date and accurate engagement letter signed by your client. Engagement letters signed internally by the practice cannot be submitted as evidence and other evidence will need to be provided by you (e.g., email correspondences to the client, proof of provision of services etc).
Dispute Categories and Recommended Actions
Dispute outcomes
If you win the credit card dispute, we will inform you that the dispute was resolved in your favour, and process a re-disbursal to your account and inform you of this.
If you lose the dispute, then we will inform you as such and no further action can be taken by us - you must resolve the issue with your client.
For ACH disputes, these will automatically be resolved in favour of your client and you will need to reach out directly to your client to resolve the reason for the dispute.
Please note: The full lifecycle of a dispute from initiation to the final decision from the issuer, can take as long as 2-3 months to complete.
When do we process the reversal of payments from your account?
We will process a reversal as soon as a dispute is raised by your client.
If you should subsequently win a credit card dispute due to submitted evidence, we will be informed by our payment provider to process a re-disbursal to your account and inform you of this.
Please note, it may take our payment provider 60-75 days to review the evidence and decide a dispute in your favour.