A payment dispute is when a buyer requests their money back by reporting an issue with their order to their bank, credit card provider, PayPal, or other payment institution. This is different to eBay Money Back Guarantee, when your buyer reports an issue with their order on eBay. The disputed amount may be placed on hold until the issue is resolved. This is different to a hold being placed on your payouts, when you may need to take further action on your eBay account to resolve the issue.
When your buyer opens a payment dispute, eBay will contact you to let you know what the next steps are. To respond, you'll need to either accept or challenge the payment dispute within 5 calendar days — if you don’t respond, the payment institution is likely to find in your buyer's favor. You can respond through My eBay Sold or Requests and disputes in Seller Hub. The final outcome will be decided by the buyer’s payment institution.
Responding to a payment dispute
When responding to a dispute, you may choose to:
- Accept the dispute, or
- Challenge the dispute.
Accepting the payment dispute
If you agree with the buyer, or you’d prefer not to challenge the payment dispute, you can accept the dispute.
Here’s how:
- Select Respond to dispute from My eBay Sold or Requests and disputes in Seller Hub.
- Select Accept the dispute and select Continue.
- To request a return, select Try to get my item returned and verify or edit your return address
- Select Accept.
When you accept the payment dispute, the amount will generally be paid from the total of your Available, Processing, and On hold funds. If you don’t have enough funds to cover the cost of the refund, the amount will be paid from your on-file payment method. eBay will close the payment dispute once the buyer's payment institution confirms the refund. eBay will also waive the dispute fee and you'll receive fee credits for some or all of your fees for the disputed transaction.
In some cases, eBay may respond to a payment dispute on your behalf, even if you accept the dispute. If you accept the dispute and eBay challenges the dispute on your behalf, you won't be charged a dispute fee.
Note: Dispute fees are no longer charged on eBay EU sites (ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.it, ebay.es, ebay.at, ebay.ch, ebay.ie, ebay.nl, ebay.pl, ebay.benl, ebay.befr).
When a seller handles (challenges or accepts) a payment dispute concerning their listing on an EU site, eBay won’t charge any payment dispute fee. The rest remains unchanged, sellers need to follow the eBay Seller protection policy to handle payment disputes.
You can submit a text up to 1000 characters if you need to add details and explain your reason for challenging a payment dispute. When providing proof, it’s possible to upload up to 5 separate files of information such as tracking details, shipping labels, messages, and photos. eBay automatically compresses the files to help you stay under the limits set by payment institutions.
This data will be shared with the buyer’s payment institution to challenge the payment dispute.The information you submit may also improve your chances of qualifying for seller protections.
The final outcome of the dispute is decided by the payment institution. Depending on the situation, you may need to cover the cost of refunding the buyer, and/or pay a dispute fee.
If you don’t respond, or the dispute results in refunding the buyer, and you’re not eligible for seller protections, the amount will be deducted from the total of your Available, Processing, and On hold funds, and we’ll charge a Dispute fee. For more information, please read our article on Getting paid for items you've sold.
However, if you’re eligible for seller protections, eBay won’t charge you for the amount of the dispute and may also waive or refund the dispute fee, even if the payment institution decides to refund the buyer. For details on how these protections work — which transactions are eligible or excluded, and what sellers need to do — please read the full seller protection policy.
Providing evidence for the payment dispute
Because different types of evidence can be more helpful in certain cases, it is recommended that you provide different types of evidence depending on the type of payment dispute. eBay will send all evidence to the buyer's payment institution.
Buyer doesn’t recognize the transaction or Buyer didn't receive the item
| Type of item | Recommended evidence |
|---|---|
| A physical item that's been shipped, except for vehicles |
|
| A physical item collected by in-store pickup (if available), except for vehicles | Valid buyer identification for an in-store pickup and proof of pickup which includes:
|
| A physical item collected by local pickup (directly from the seller), except for vehicles |
|
| Vehicles when they’ve been shipped |
|
| Vehicles when they’ve been picked up |
|
Item doesn't match the listing or Item was damaged when received or Item received had missing parts
| Type of item | Recommended evidence |
|---|---|
| Any physical item |
|
Item wasn't authentic
| Type of item | Recommended evidence |
|---|---|
| Any physical or digitally delivered item |
|
Buyer didn't receive a refund
| Type of item | Recommended evidence |
|---|---|
| Any physical or digitally delivered item |
|
Before you upload an image, it helps to crop the image to the relevant area. You can also compress or merge images if you wish. Your image can be in JPEG, JPG, or PNG format. The maximum number of files allowed is 5, and the total size for all files should be under 1.75 MB. You can also provide supporting text when challenging the dispute.
When you challenge the payment dispute, the final outcome will be decided by the buyer’s payment institution. The payment dispute could take up to 90 days or more to be resolved, depending on the payment method or card provider. eBay may hold the funds from payout up to 90 days from when the dispute arises.
If the dispute is found in your favor, you won't be charged for a refund and you won’t have to pay a dispute fee.
If the dispute is found in the buyer's favor, they’ll receive a refund. Whether you're charged for the refund and whether you have to pay a dispute fee depends on whether you're eligible for our payment dispute seller protections. You won't be charged more than one dispute fee per order, even if your buyer has used multiple forms of payment.
If you’re not eligible for seller protections, the refund amount will generally be deducted from the total of your Available, Processing, and On hold funds, and you’ll be charged a dispute fee. If you are eligible for seller protections, you won’t be charged the refund amount and eBay may also waive or refund the dispute fee.
Note: If you ask for an item to be returned to you during a payment dispute, eBay will try to recover the item for you, regardless of whether you accept or challenge the payment dispute. However, eBay can’t guarantee the buyer will return the item.
Checking the status of a payment dispute
Once you've responded to a payment dispute, eBay will email you with any updates about the status of the dispute. You can also check the status of the dispute at any time by finding the order in My eBay Sold or Requests and disputes in Seller Hub.
In some cases, a payment institution may reopen a closed dispute. If this happens, you may be asked to provide additional evidence for challenging the dispute.
The payment dispute could take up to 90 days or more to be resolved, depending on the payment method or card provider. eBay may hold the funds from payout up to 30 days from when the dispute arises.
Avoiding payment disputes
A buyer may open a dispute if:
- They didn't receive their item
- The item doesn't match the description in your listing
- They didn't recognise the transaction
- They were charged more than once for an item or for the transaction
- They changed their mind or canceled the transaction
- They’re missing a credit or a refund
To help prevent payment disputes, you should always:
- Create detailed, accurate listings
- Include multiple, high-quality photos of your items
- Use a tracked shipping service with proof of delivery to the address provided by the buyer at checkout
- Include signature confirmation for items that cost over a certain amount. Learn more about signature confirmation requirements
- Be responsive to buyers who contact you through eBay Messages and work to resolve any issues
- Keep any messages and supporting documentation through eBay tools
- When deducting an amount from the buyer's refund, provide information to your buyer as to why you didn’t issue a full refund. For example, “deducted 5% from the refund because the item was returned used or damaged”
Buyers can't use more than one resolution method to get a refund. If a buyer opens a dispute, any open order cancellations, reports that an item hasn't arrived, return requests, or eBay Money Back Guarantee cases for the same transaction are immediately closed.
You can respond to a dispute in My eBay Sold or Requests and disputes in Seller Hub within 5 calendar days.