There is a recent implementation of new chargeback-related fees for transactions processed via Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, and Debit Networks. These fees have been introduced independently of the regular release schedule and are distinct from any existing fees.
Commencing December 1, 2023, the dispute fees associated with your merchant's transactions will be included in your account and reflected on your merchant's month-end statement.
Refer to the below table for the updated Pass-Through Fee Schedule detailing the new dispute fees that may be visible on the statements. To understand chargeback and the dispute processes, download the best practice guide here.
| Fee Description | Rate | Fee Definition |
| Retrieval Fulfillment Visa DMS | $0.45 | The fee is tiggered/assessed anytime a merchant responds to a request for transaction information (retrieval) and the response is provided to Visa by the Visa due date. (Applicable to Healthcare Transactions only) |
| NW Retrieval NonFulfillment Visa DMS | $0.45 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime a merchant does not respond to a request for transaction information (retrieval) and no response is provided to Visa by the Visa due date. (Applicable to Healthcare Transactions only) |
| NW Late Acpt Day 21-25 Visa-DMS | $0.50 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration stating they will accept liablity and the response is sent to the Issuer between day 21-25 of the incoming central processing date. |
| NW Late Acpt Day 26-30 Visa-DMS | $0.75 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration stating they will accept liablity and the response is sent to the Issuer between day 26-30 of the incoming central processing date. |
| NW No Acceptance Visa-DMS | $0.75 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant does not respond or does not respond by the Network due date (30 days from the central processing date) to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration. |
| NW Merchant Rsp Day 1-20 Visa DMS | $1.05 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration challenging the case and the merchant's challenge (response) is sent to the Issuer between day 1-20 of the incoming chargeback central processing date. |
| NW Merch Rsp Day 21-25 Visa DMS | $1.75 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration challenging the case and the merchant's challenge (response) is sent to the Issuer between day 21-25 of the incoming chargeback central processing date. |
| NW Merch Rsp Day 26-30 Visa DMS | $2.15 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration challenging the case and the merchant's challenge (response) is sent to the Issuer between day 26-30 of the incoming chargeback central processing date. |
| Dispute Image Fee Visa DMS | $1.50 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Credit or Signature Debit chargeback or a Credit or Signature Debit Incoming Prearbitration challenging the chargeback/prearbitration and the merchant's challenge (response) and documentation (image) is sent to the Issuer. |
| NW PreComp Image Fee Visa DMS | $1.50 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Pre Compliance challenging the case and the merchant's challenge (response) and documentation (image) is sent to the Issuer. The fee is also triggered/assessed anytime a Pre Compliance case is initiated by the merchant or Acquirer and documentation (image) is sent to the Issuer. |
| NW Visa Prearb CNP Remedy DMS | $5.00 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Visa Fraud (1040) Card not Present chargeback and the merchant's challenge (response) includes details on two prior non-disputed Visa transactions for the same cardholder. The response is considered a 'remedy' and shifts liability back to the issuer. |
| NW Case Filing Fee Visa-DMS | $12.50 | The fee is triggered/assessed any time the merchant or the Acquirer initiates an Outgoing Filed Compliance or Outgoing Filed Arbitration. Note: Outgoing Filed Arbitrations may occur for Visa fraud and authorization cases where the merchant or Fiserv has identfied a valid remedy, but the issuing bank has not accepted the Outgoing Pre-Arbitration. For Outgoing Filed Compliance, these cases will be initated when the merchant or Fiserv has proven a processing rule violation has occured and the merchant is holding a financial loss. Once pushed to Outgoing Filed Arbitration / Outgoing Filed Compliance, a Visa ruling decision will be received advising of which party (issuer or merchant) will hold liability for the transaction. |
| NW Case Ruling Fee Visa-DMS | $500.00 | This fee is triggered/assessed any time the Merchant/Acquirer or the Issuer initiates a Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance dispute and the Network (Visa) 'rules' in favor of the issuing bank. Note: To reach the Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance stage, the issuer and acquirer would have already worked through the chargeback, and Pre-Arbitration stages without resolution, and thus the dispute has reached the final stage requiring Visa ruling decision. To avoid this fee, merchants would need to accept at either the chargeback or Pre-Arbitration stage to prevent cases from reaching Filed Arbitration or FIled Compliance stages. |
| Fee Description | Rate | Fee Definition |
| MC PreArbitration Accept Fee | $15.00 |
The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Mastercard Incoming PreArbitration stating they will accept liablity and response is sent by the Network due date (45 days from the incoming central processing date) Note: The incoming prearbitration stage is the second stage of the Mastercard chargeback life cycle. To reach this stage the merchant or the Acquirer would have challenged a chargeback and Issuing bank continued to dispute the transaction. |
| Dispute Image Fee MasterCard DMS | $0.20 |
This fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant receives or sends a Mastercard Chargeback or an Incoming PreArbitration that includes documentation (images). Note: The Issuer documentation package includes all of the issuer's comments and any additional bank documentation to support the case. The Merchant/Acquirer documentation package includes material in support of the merchant response. |
| NW Dispute Excessive Page MC DMS | $1.00 per page |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time the merchant provides a response to a Mastercard Chargeback or Incoming Pre-Arbitration, and the documention provided exceeds 19 pages in overall length. Note: If the response exceeds 19 pages, the merchant is billed one count of this fee code per page submitted for all pages of the response provided. (For example, if the response is 20 pages in length, that will trigger a count of 20 for this fee code to be billed to the merchant. To reduce this fee, merchants should limit their rebuttal response image packages to fewer than 19 pages in length.) |
| No Auth 1st CB-Progressive Handling MC | $25.00 |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time the merchant receives a Mastercard chargeback for reason code 07, 08 or 12 (authorization related reason codes). Note: These types of chargebacks are received if the merchant does not have valid issuer authorization for the posting of that transaction. |
| No Auth Reversal-Progressive Handling MC | -$50.00 |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time the merchant challenges (responds) a Mastercard chargeback for reason code 07, 08 or 12 (authorization related reason codes). Note: These types of chargebacks are received if the merchant does not have valid issuer authorization for the posting of that transaction. |
| No Auth 2nd CB-Progressive Handling MC | $50.00 |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time the merchant challenges (responds) a Mastercard chargeback for reason code 07, 08 or 12 (authorization related reason codes) and the Issuer does not accept the response. The Issuer will initiate an Incoming PreArbitration. Note: These types of chargebacks are received if the merchant does not have valid issuer authorization for the posting of that transaction. |
| Dispute Case MasterCard DMS | $1.35 | This fee is triggered/assessed any time a Mastercard chargeback is received. This fee is triggered regardless of the final outcome of the Mastercard chargeback received. |
| NW Case Filing Withdrawal MasterCard DMS | $320.00 |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time a Mastercard Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance that is initiated by the Merchant/Acquirer or the Issuer is withdrawn by the Merchant/Acquirer and the Network is no longer required to rule on the case. Note: To avoid this fee, merchants should either accept the Incoming chargeback or Incoming Prearbitration. |
| NW Case Ruling Fee MasterCard DMS | $420.00 |
This fee is triggered/assessed any time the Merchant/Acquirer or the Issuer initiates a Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance dispute and the Network (MC) 'rules' in favor of the issuing bank. Note: To reach the Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance stage, the issuer and acquirer would have already worked through the chargeback, and Pre-Arbitration stages without resolution, and thus the dispute has reached the final stage requiring Visa ruling decision. To avoid this fee, merchants would need to accept at either the chargeback or Pre-Arbitration stage to prevent cases from reaching Filed Arbitration or FIled Compliance stages. |
| Fee Description | Rate | Fee Definition |
| NW Ticket Retr Request Disc DMS | $1.00 | The fee is tiggered/assessed anytime a merchant receives a request for transaction information (retrieval) from Discover. This fee is billed regardless of the final outcome of the retrieval. |
| Lost Filing DMS - Discover | $475.00 | This fee is triggered/assessed any time the Merchant/Acquirer or the Issuer initiates a Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance dispute and the Network (Discover) 'rules' in favor of the issuing bank. Note: To reach the Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance stage, the issuer and acquirer would have already worked through the chargeback, and Pre-Arbitration stages without resolution, and thus the dispute has reached the final stage requiring Visa ruling decision. To avoid this fee, merchants would need to accept at either the chargeback or Pre-Arbitration stage to prevent cases from reaching Filed Arbitration or FIled Compliance stages. |
| NW Disc Inq Req Non Resp- DMS | $0.65 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime a merchant does not respond to a request for transaction information (retrieval) and no response is provided to Discover by the Discover due date. |
| NW Disc Representment Fee- DMS | $1.00 | The fee is triggered/assessed anytime the merchant responds to a Discover Credit or Signature Debit chargeback challenging the case and the merchant's challenge (response) is sent to the Issuer. |
| Fee Description | Rate | Fee Definition |
| Lost Filing DMS -- STAR | $750.00 | This fee is triggered/assessed any time the Merchant/Acquirer or the Issuer initiates a Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance dispute and the Network (STAR (Dual Message System)) 'rules' in favor of the issuing bank. Note: To reach the Filed Arbitration or Filed Compliance stage, the issuer and acquirer would have already worked through the chargeback, and Pre-Arbitration stages without resolution, and thus the dispute has reached the final stage requiring START ruling decision. To avoid this fee, merchants would need to accept at either the chargeback or Pre-Arbitration stage to prevent cases from reaching Filed Arbitration or FIled Compliance stages. |