Recovery playbook
Fight the dispute or claw back the transfer?
A dispute arrives and demands a decision most teams make by mood: fight or concede. Then, weeks later, a second decision arrives disguised as grief: the dispute is lost, now what. Treating these as one improvised drama wastes money twice. Representing has costs and win probabilities; conceding has a precise price tag minus what clawback can still retrieve. Run the numbers and most disputes decide themselves.
The two costs
Representation costs evidence assembly time against a win probability set mostly by reason code. Concession costs the disputed amount plus the dispute fee, minus whatever clawback retrieves afterwards. Modelled break-even: at a 30% win rate on a $600 dispute, expected representation value rarely clears assembly cost unless evidence already exists; at 80% it almost always does. Below your ops floor, concede and claw back without ceremony.
- Represent at 30% win rate
- EV +$100 − $80 → marginal
- Concede + claw back at 70% reachability
- ≈ $378 recovered − $0 prep
Reason codes predict outcomes
Fraud codes rarely win without compelling delivery proof. Product-not-received frequently does, with tracking and correspondence. Subscription-cancellation disputes are a policy problem impersonating an evidence problem — no dossier fixes terms buyers did not understand. Triage by code before investing effort anywhere else.
The evidence pack
Assemble once, template forever: order timeline, delivery confirmation, terms acceptance timestamp, prior support history, device or account signals where relevant. FeeGuard’s created findings arrive with charge and transfer attached — the skeleton of the pack — so assembly starts half-done instead of blank.
If lost, and if won
If lost: the clawback playbook applies immediately — recoverable figure from live transfer state, idempotency key from the dispute id, notice to the seller per template. If won: verify the balance transactions actually restored funds, then close the watch-list entry. Unreconciled wins are how phantom findings are born.
Common questions
Should we always represent disputes?
No. Below the ops floor, concede and claw back — the expected value of fighting small disputes is negative even at decent win rates.
Is the dispute fee returned when we win?
No. The disputed amount returns through network flow; the fee stays spent regardless of outcome.
Can we claw back while representing?
Never. Wait for the outcome — reversing an open dispute penalises a seller who may still win, which is unrecoverable goodwill.