For online retailers turning over $10m+
Stop managing chargebacks blind.
An independent, fixed-price review of your chargebacks: what’s causing them, how you respond, and what it’s all costing you. You get a clear picture and a ranked plan to stop the revenue bleed.
No pitch. You’ll leave with at least one practical idea either way.
Even at $100m–$499m in revenue, only 36% of merchants win more than half the disputes they contest. At $2b+, it’s 52%.
“Scale buys a dispute strategy. The Health Check gives you one.”
A chargeback costs far more than the sale.
Most retailers see the refunded amount. Few see the full cost, or how quickly it compounds.
The sale and the goods
The revenue is reversed, and the product is usually gone too.
Fees on every dispute
Your payment provider charges a fee whether you contest it or not.
Staff time
Gathering evidence by hand, case by case, against tight deadlines.
Risk to taking payments
Left unchecked, high dispute ratios can bring monitoring programs, higher costs, or put your ability to take card payments at risk.
The blind spot
Everyone owns a piece of the problem. No one sees all of it.
We often see the same disconnect: finance, product and operations each hold part of the chargeback picture, so no one can see the full revenue leakage, or who can fix it.
- Finance
- Sees chargeback costs buried in the overall cost of accepting payments, so they rarely show up as their own line, let alone with their causes.
- Product and ecommerce
- Control checkout, descriptors and policies, but rarely see dispute data.
- Operations
- Handle refunds, delivery and complaints, but don't see which ones end up as chargebacks.
Large retailers have dedicated payments and disputes teams to join these dots. The Health Check gives you that same expert view, and turns it into actions your teams can own.
How we help
See it. Prevent it. Respond well.
From statement descriptors to refund delays, we find which gaps are driving your disputes.
See
Know your numbers
Your dispute rate, outcomes, reasons and true cost, and where they're heading, before your payment provider tells you.
Prevent
Fix what's causing them
Trace disputes back to the operational gaps behind them, then close the ones costing you most.
Respond
Respond like the big end of town
A clear strategy for which disputes to contest, with evidence that answers the actual dispute reason, on time. Stop spending effort on cases you can't win.
The inside view
Why good evidence still gets rejected.
Disputes are decided on the other side of the system. PDI’s work is led by people who’ve worked on that side, in issuing banks and card scheme infrastructure, so the Health Check shows you how your response actually reads to the people deciding it.
- It answers the wrong question
- Evidence that doesn't address the specific dispute reason is set aside, however strong it looks.
- It arrives too late
- Response windows are strict. A good case submitted after the deadline is a lost case.
- It buries the key fact
- Long document dumps make it hard to see the one piece of proof that matters.
How it works
Two weeks from your data to a plan.
Day 1
Kickoff
A short call to agree scope and a short data request: your dispute export, transaction volumes and a few cost figures. The two weeks start once we have your data.
Week 1
Benchmark
We establish your dispute rate, outcomes, reasons and true cost, and where they're heading. Your transaction volumes let us calculate ratios against card-scheme monitoring programs such as Visa's VAMP.
Week 1
Review
We analyse your disputes and talk with the people who handle orders, refunds, service and payments.
Week 2
Diagnose
We trace disputes to their causes and size what each gap is costing you.
End of week 2
Readout
A working session with your leaders on the findings and the ranked plan.
What you walk away with
- A scorecard of your dispute operation
- The true cost of your chargebacks, and the causes behind them
- A tailored roadmap to close your exposure, prioritised by what each gap is costing you
- Quick wins for the next 30 days
Sample deliverable
See what you get before you book.
A redacted extract from the scorecard and roadmap. The structure is real; the ratings and figures are illustrative, not a client result.
Dispute operation scorecard
Illustrative- Visibility and reporting
- Weak
- Prevention
- Partial
- Evidence and response
- Partial
- Contest strategy
- Weak
- Ownership across teams
- Strong
Roadmap, ranked by cost of the gap
Illustrative- 1
Set contest-or-accept rules by dispute reason
Effort: MediumOwner: Payments90 days - 2
Make the statement descriptor recognisable
Effort: LowOwner: Product30 days - 3
Confirm refunds proactively to customers
Effort: LowOwner: Operations30 days - 4
Set a delivery-proof standard for high-value orders
Effort: MediumOwner: Operations90 days - 5
Apply chargebacks to the applicable product or service P&L
Effort: LowOwner: Finance30 days
Each action comes with the finding behind it, the expected impact and how to measure it.
Independent
No vendor bias. Nothing to sell you after.
Most chargeback advice comes from companies selling dispute software or alert services. We don’t sell either, and we take no referral fees from anyone who does. Where a tool would help, we tell you what to look for, not which one to buy.
No software to sell
Our recommendations are never steered toward a product.
No referral fees
No commissions from vendors, payment providers or banks.
Research-led
Grounded in PDI's independent research into how disputes work in Australia.
Common questions
What data do you need from us?
Three things, all covered by a short template we send at kickoff: a read-only export of recent disputes and outcomes from your payment provider; your transaction volumes, so we can calculate your ratios against card-scheme monitoring programs such as Visa's VAMP; and what each dispute really costs you, including margins or cost of goods sold, plus staff and contact-centre time spent handling disputes. This helps identify which disputes are worth contesting. Missing some cost figures? We can work from clearly labelled assumptions and show you where they're used.
How is our data kept confidential?
We work under an NDA and ask only for what the review needs. We don't need full card numbers or customer contact details, and our template shows you how to mask them. Your data is stored securely with access limited to the people working on your review. We delete raw data within 60 days of the final readout and confirm it in writing. Your report and roadmap stay with you. We may use de-identified, aggregated findings in PDI's research, combined with other merchants' results so nothing can be traced back to you. You can opt out of this.
Which payment providers do you work with?
Any. The review works from your provider's dispute reports, whichever provider you use.
Does paying for a Health Check influence PDI's research?
No. Clients can contribute evidence to our research, but they don't shape our findings or public positions.
Find out what chargebacks are really costing you.
Book a 20-minute call. We’ll talk through your disputes and where they’re coming from, and you’ll leave with at least one practical idea, whether or not we work together.
No pitch. No obligation.