Chargeback
A forced reversal of a card payment, opened through the cardholder's bank rather than the merchant, that pulls funds back out of the merchant's account — different from a refund, which the merchant chooses to give.
The Fair Credit Billing Act of 1974 gives cardholders the right to dispute a billing error. Once a dispute opens, the burden generally falls on the merchant to prove the charge was legitimate — a real order record, confirmed authorization, and delivery evidence matter far more than they would in an ordinary refund conversation.
A customer orders delivery at 11pm, and three weeks later doesn't recognize an unfamiliar statement descriptor for the charge and disputes it. The restaurant's evidence — a matching delivery address, a phone number tied to prior orders, a completed delivery confirmation — is what turns the reversal back around.
The most common mistake is assuming a chargeback is proof of fraud. Plenty come from an unrecognized descriptor, a family member using a shared card, or a complaint escalated to the bank instead of the restaurant — the industry's own term for this is friendly fraud.
When a payment provider notifies Dohos of a dispute, it's routed to the correct restaurant and tracked against its deadline, with order and fulfillment records helping assemble the response, covered on Order & payment terms.
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