What are chargeback alerts?
A chargeback alert is an early notification that a customer has initiated a dispute with their bank. Once the merchant enrolled in a participating alert network, the dispute can be routed as an alert before it becomes a formal chargeback.
This gives the merchant a short window to refund the transaction. If the alert is successfully refunded in time, the dispute is resolved before a chargeback is created and does not count toward the merchant’s chargeback ratio.
Chargeback alerts are one of the most effective and direct ways to reduce chargebacks and protect a merchant's standing with payment processors and card networks. With Disputifier, alerts can be refunded automatically, making chargeback prevention largely hands-off.
Which companies and programs provide chargeback alerts?
All chargeback alerts come from the same two companies, and every alert provider, including Disputifier, resells alerts from these two sources:
Verifi (owned by Visa) offers two alert programs:
CDRN (Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network) and
RDR (Rapid Dispute Resolution).
Ethoca (owned by Mastercard) provides Ethoca alerts.
Buying alerts through a reseller like Disputifier is normally cheaper for merchants than buying directly from Verifi and Ethoca, unless you are receiving thousands of chargebacks per month.
How do chargeback alerts work?
Chargeback alerts work through Verifi and Ethoca, which have partnered with thousands of banks worldwide. When a customer files a chargeback with one of these partner banks, Verifi or Ethoca is immediately notified, and that notification is passed to you as an alert.
Chargeback alerts reduce chargebacks, they do not eliminate them entirely.
What chargeback reduction can I expect from alerts?
With both Verifi and Ethoca alerts enabled, it is normal to reduce US chargebacks by 60–80%, and in some cases higher. This is because most US banks are partnered with Verifi and Ethoca, so coverage in the US is strong.
Important: Your coverage outside the US will be lower than the 60–80% range, because fewer banks in other regions are partnered with Verifi and Ethoca. Coverage is especially limited in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Do alerts check whether a dispute is valid?
No. Chargeback alerts are designed to prevent chargebacks quickly.
Alerts do not investigate the situation behind a cardholder's dispute. The alert network does not verify whether the customer's claim is true or whether the product was successfully delivered, it only signals that a dispute was filed.
The purpose of the alert is simply to give the merchant a short window to refund the transaction before the dispute becomes a formal chargeback. This means an alert may occasionally be refunded on an order the merchant believes was legitimate or properly fulfilled. The tradeoff is speed: by refunding the alert quickly, the merchant prevents the dispute from becoming a chargeback and affecting their chargeback ratio.
Once you accept Disputifier's terms of service, we do not need to ask for your authorization to refund alerts while your settings are set to auto-refund. Disputifier processes these refunds automatically on your behalf.
If you'd rather decide case by case, you can turn off auto-refund and choose which alerts to refund and which to let proceed to a chargeback so you can fight it. This applies to CDRN and Ethoca alerts. RD alerts are the exception: with RDR, refunds are issued automatically by Visa, and this cannot be turned off. Keep one thing in mind before letting an alert become a chargeback: even if you win the chargeback and recover the funds, that chargeback still counts toward your chargeback ratio. Refunding the alert is the only outcome that keeps the dispute off your ratio entirely.
Why does an RDR case still show as a chargeback in Shopify?
If you use Shopify Payments, an RDR case may show as a chargeback or as "chargeback resolved" in your Shopify dashboard. Shopify changed how it displays chargeback rates, and it may include RDR cases in that reporting. As a result, your Shopify "chargeback ratio" can go up even when the case was handled through RDR.
On the Visa network side, RDR is treated differently than a standard chargeback. Because RDR is an automatic resolution program, Visa does not count RDR cases the same way in their network monitoring ratios. So RDR still prevents a dispute from becoming a normal Visa chargeback, even if Shopify continues to show it in your dashboard.
How much do chargeback alerts cost?
Please contact the Disputifier team directly for pricing on chargeback alerts.
How long do chargeback alerts take to set up?
Setup time depends on which alert program you're enrolling in. CDRN and Ethoca alerts can be set up faster because they're configured directly through Disputifier, while RDR requires extensive setup and testing through Verifi.
The table below shows the typical setup time for each chargeback alert program:
Alert program | Typical setup time |
CDRN alerts | Around 2-3 business days |
Ethoca alerts | Around 2-3 business days |
RDR alerts | 5–10 business days |
What alert features does Disputifier offer?
When you enroll in chargeback alerts through Disputifier, you get more than the raw alerts. Disputifier offers the following chargeback alert features:
Chargeback Alert Dashboard. Stay up to date on key analytics for your chargeback alerts, all in one place.
Alerts customization:
Free subscription cancellations and blacklisting. For customers who receive alerts, Disputifier can cancel their subscriptions and add them to a blacklist at no extra cost, helping prevent repeat chargebacks from the same customers.
Auto-refund on or off. Let Disputifier automatically refund alerts, or turn auto-refund off to decide which alerts to refund yourself.
Refund threshold. Set a maximum value for automated refunds. Alerts above this amount are refunded by you manually. The value you enter is a number only, not a USD amount, take the currency you sell in into account when setting your threshold.
Don't refund by fulfillment status. Skip auto-refunds on orders with a selected fulfillment status, such as Delivered, so those alerts can be reviewed manually (requires a supported CRM integration).
Ready to set up chargeback alerts?
Chargeback alerts are one of the most effective, hands-off ways to prevent chargebacks from affecting your chargeback ratio. If you have any questions, or you'd like to set up alerts, please reach out to the Disputifier team today through the live chat in the Disputifier app.