Chargebacks and Disputes

Chargebacks happen when a cardholder disputes a charge with their bank. The cardholder's bank investigates and talks to the merchant, and the bank then decides whether or not to refund the order. When you use Big Tickets Payment Processing, Big Tickets is the merchant and manages chargebacks to help save you money. Reduce the risk of chargebacks by setting a clear refund policy and responding quickly to refund requests. Keep in mind that banks can still decide to refund a charge even with a "No refund" policy.

Understanding chargebacks

Cardholders dispute the charge with their bank or credit card company to start a chargeback.

Cardholders often dispute their purchase for one of the following reasons:

They don't recognize the charge.
They didn't get the advertised services.
They want to get a refund (but didn't receive one).

The bank asks Big Tickets to provide evidence that the charge was legitimate. If Big Tickets wins the chargeback, there's no refund, and if Big Tickets doesn't win the chargeback, the bank refunds the amount.

There are also fees from the bank for every chargeback, even if Big Tickets wins the dispute.

What Big Tickets does to defend against chargebacks

Big Tickets has over sixteen years of experience managing chargebacks and wins chargebacks at rates above industry standards.

The general approach is always the same. Big Tickets has a dedicated team that defends the charge. They use information about your event, including:

Proof the order was legitimate.
Evidence, the attendee attended the event.
The refund policy of your event.
And more.

This dispute process can take a long time, usually up to 120 days. If the bank still decides to refund the order, you'll have to cover the total ticket price and any fees associated with the order and chargeback process.

Best policies to help prevent chargebacks

No payment processor, including Big Tickets Payment Processing, can guarantee that chargebacks won't happen. However, you can make lost chargebacks less likely by taking these steps:

Set clear expectations

Setting a clear refund policy helps manage expectations and prevent confusion from attendees. Make sure your event description is accurate as well. If your event changes, email your attendees as soon as possible.

Respond to refund requests as soon as possible.

Make sure to respond to all refund requests within seven days. If you receive a refund request outside of your refund policy, you can decline the refund request.

If you decline a refund request, consider transferring the attendee to an event that they can attend. You can also offer to change the information on the order to someone else. Either way, get written confirmation that this solution is acceptable for the attendee.

Respond to messages from Big Tickets's Payments team.

If you receive an email from Big Tickets's Payments team, read it carefully and respond as soon as possible. The Payments team will use the information you provide to defend the chargeback. The more information you provide, the more likely Big Tickets will win the chargeback.

When you receive a chargeback

When the bank decides to refund the charge, Big Tickets sends an email to your account email address. Here are your next steps:

If the event hasn't happened yet, ensure that you scan tickets or check the attendees in by ID. Refunded tickets aren't valid for your event. If the attendee still wants to use their tickets, direct them to buy new tickets. There is no way to reverse a refund.
If the event has already happened, you'll see a line item within Manage Payments under your account settings for the event.

The charge will apply to your next payout. Big Tickets will send an invoice for the amount if there are no upcoming payouts.

Where you can monitor disputes and chargebacks

Only Admins on the account have access to see disputes. You can control user access to disputes under your admin profile area under admin services. You can learn more about creating new users and assigning permissions here.

To find your dispute status, navigate to Administration > Disputes. From here, you'll be able to view any open disputes and review totals by event. If you have any questions or concerns about a specific dispute on your account, you can contact your account manager or reach out to our support team at support@bigtickets.com.