Overview

When a dispute is filed by your client, you will receive a notification which includes the dispute category and other dispute details.

If you decide to challenge the dispute, you will submit all evidence by heading to the Dispute section of your TravelJoy account.

For a full overview of the dispute process, see our guide "How disputes work."

Review the dispute

The first step in the dispute challenge process is to review and understand why the client has chosen to dispute the payment. This can help you understand how to approach a potential dispute challenge, and in some cases, you may even determine that the dispute is valid.

Decide how to respond

Once you understand the client's concern, decide how you would like to proceed:

Accept the dispute. In some cases, it may not make sense to submit a challenge. For example, you may find that the client's complaint is valid and you do not wish to fight it. Alternatively, you may find that you do not have compelling evidence and do not wish to pursue a challenge. In these cases, reply to the notification and request that the dispute be accepted.

Work with your client. If you resolve the issue amicably by providing a credit, new dates, or some other option, the client may withdraw the dispute. While this can be the fastest and easiest resolution, you must still submit evidence of the withdrawn dispute. 

Challenge the dispute. If you believe the dispute is not valid, you can submit evidence to overturn it. This is the most common approach, and the rest of this guide will contain best practices on how to build your challenge.

Challenge the dispute

If you’ve decided to challenge a dispute, the portal will walk you through the process of submitting your evidence. The system will automatically include key items from your TravelJoy account, such as signed agreements, invoices, and receipts. You’ll have the opportunity to review and update the included documentation before submitting your challenge.

When uploading additional evidence, keep it relevant, accurate, and to the point. If you don’t have every item listed, that’s okay—submit what you have to make the strongest case possible.

Suggested additional evidence by dispute reason

Credit Not Processed

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing the client did not reach out about their concern prior to filing the dispute
• Partial use of service: Details of this service being partially used despite the full amount being disputed

Duplicate Charge

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing the client did not reach out about their concerns prior to filing the dispute
• Duplicate charge ID: Details of the matching charge based on payment amount and customer information
• Duplicate charge explanation: Details of each charge, how they apply to the client, and why they are not duplicate charges
• Duplicate charge documentation: The invoice and payment schedule for each charge, documenting the total amount due on the invoice as well as the individual payments made

Fraudulent

• Prior transactions: 1-2 prior transactions matching the client's payment method, email address, device fingerprint, and IP address with no fraud activity

• Proof of service: Documentation that shows the client has used/plans to use the services provided

• Proof of authorized use: Customer communication showing that the client is familiar with the transaction details and authorized the transaction

General

• Dispute withdrawal confirmation: The Letter of withdrawal or Re-billing statement showing that the client has officially withdrawn the dispute with their bank

• Documentation of previous compensation: Proof that the client received compensation prior to submitting this dispute

Product Not Received

• Proof of service: Documentation that shows the client has used/plans to use the services provided

• Documentation of previous compensation: Proof that the client received compensation prior to submitting this dispute

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing the client is aware of and participated in the trip

Product Unacceptable

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing the client did not reach out about their concern prior to filing the dispute

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing they were satisfied with the service and booking at the conclusion of service

• Partial use of service: Details of this service being partially used despite the full amount being disputed

Subscription cancelled

• Customer communication: Emails or text messages with the client showing the client did not reach out about stopping auto-pay on their invoice
• Auto-pay opt in notification: Email notification that shows the client opted into auto-pay

Below, you'll find some suggestions for preparing your evidence in a way that makes it easier for the bank to review. This gives you the greatest possible chance of a dispute being found in your favor—and having your funds returned to you.

Submitting client communications

Client communication can be crucial to your dispute challenge, so it is important to keep a record of these conversations. The format of your evidence will depend upon the communication channel.

For email conversations, save each message as a PDF with the date and time in the filename. If you aren't sure how to do this, you may use screenshots instead, but you'll want to be sure that each screenshot shows the To, From, and Date/Time fields for each message.

For text messages and social media, collect screenshots. These should show the client's name as well as the date/time stamps for each message.

For phone conversations, submit a PDF of your written account of each relevant phone conversation, including the date and time of contact, as well as the client's phone number.

For all client communication, add a box around or arrows to point to the most relevant sections so the bank can quickly identify what’s important from the conversation.

Submitting documents

Dispute evidence is often transmitted through several legacy systems and most card issuers are still utilizing paper faxing. Before submitting your response, ensure that any text or images are clear and large enough to show up clearly in a black and white fax transmission.

While you can zoom in on your electronic documents, the card issuer will not be able to do so. Any evidence that is too small to transmit clearly won’t be considered by the card issuer, so it’s better to have large, full-page images than try to fit too many on one page.

When submitting documents or images as evidence, use the following recommendations to make sure they can remain legible:

• Use a 12-point font or larger
• Ensure that documents are U.S. Letter or A4 size, in portrait orientation
• Avoid using color highlighting, as the bank may receive files in black and white
• Use bold text, callouts, boxes, or arrows to draw attention to pertinent information

Submitting images

When uploading images, use a standard file format, such as JPG. Crop the image to the area of interest. Annotate the image with arrows and text boxes to highlight the most relevant parts of the image.

Any illegible text or data that is submitted with a response will be considered incomplete by the card issuer and not reviewed, so be sure to only include high-quality images.

What you should not submit

Refrain from submitting the following as evidence:

• Requests to call or email you
• Links to click for further information
• Audio or video files
• Long, overly detailed explanations

Card issuers will not review this information, so it’s important to submit all available evidence directly through the dispute portal as documents or screenshots.