Visa 13.3: Not as Described or Defective Merchandise/Services

Goods/services differ from description or damaged

DESC: invoice/contract refuting claim

• The description or contract the purchase was made under

Arrives in the app as: Product not as described

Proof this usually needs

• Product description
• Customer email
• Access activity

What the app cannot collect for you

Access activity. If you have login, download or usage records for this customer, add them to your dispute response. Records like these live on your own systems rather than in Shopify, so they have to come from you.

Merchant or acquirer response

30 days

Cardholder dispute window

120 days, or 540 days for delayed delivery

An allocation dispute is a Visa dispute in categories 10 (Fraud) and 11 (Authorization). Visa's current rules call these dispute categories 10 and 11. Visa decides liability from the dispute condition itself, so there is no stage at which you send a response for the issuer to weigh. Your acquirer's only route is a pre-arbitration attempt. Visa's rules set out the stages for these two categories as Dispute, Pre-Arbitration Attempt and Pre-Arbitration Response, with no Dispute Response stage in between.

A collaboration dispute is a Visa dispute in categories 12 (Processing errors) and 13 (Consumer disputes). Visa's current rules call these dispute categories 12 and 13. These take a response from you: your acquirer sends a Dispute Response, and the issuer must then address the evidence in it before it can make a pre-arbitration attempt. Unresolved, it goes on to arbitration.

• Visa, Dispute Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants, June 2024
• Stripe, reason code categories Accessed 8 September 2026.

• 13.1
• 13.2
• 13.4
• 13.5
• 13.6
• 13.7
• 13.8
• 13.9