A chargeback is the moment a customer's bank takes money back from your account. It can happen weeks after the order, it costs a fee even before you know who is right, and the decision is final. Fraud is one cause of it, but it is not the only one, and a store can lose money on disputes from real customers who simply did not recognise a charge or did not get what they expected.
This guide sets out how fraud analysis and chargebacks work on Shopify, using the Help Center pages I read on 11 November 2026, and turns them into a short routine for before and after you ship. The figures below are the ones the pages showed that day. Fees and deadlines vary by country and can change, so check your own admin and payment provider.
Fraud checks come first
Shopify's fraud analysis page says it looks for online credit card orders that might be fraudulent so you can review them before you fulfil. It gives each order a recommendation of low, medium or high risk of a fraud-related chargeback. Medium and high show a warning symbol on the Orders page. The indicators include whether the address check and security code passed, whether the location fits the payment method, unusual device or network activity and whether more than one card was tried. The page says no single indicator decides the result.
For a high-risk order the page offers three actions: verify, cancel or refund. You can also use manual payment capture, so you review the order before you accept the payment.
Know what it does not cover. The page says the indicators, with third-party fraud apps, are on Basic and higher, while the recommendations need Grow or higher, or Shopify Payments. Analysis covers only online credit card orders that Shopify can verify. There are no recommendations for test orders, free orders, orders paid fully by gift card, POS orders, B2B orders or subscription renewals. Shopify Payments may block some high-risk checkouts before an order exists. The page also notes that an IP address can be blocked for a while after many orders or failed payments, usually for up to a day, and that draft orders or POS work in the meantime.
One more point from the page: the bank, not Shopify, decides a card reversal, and Shopify does not cover them. A low-risk label is a guide, not a guarantee.
How a chargeback unfolds
Shopify's chargeback page describes the stages.
- The customer contacts their bank.
- The bank opens an inquiry or a chargeback.
- Shopify notifies you and sets a deadline.
- You submit evidence. The page says this is typically 7 to 21 days.
- The card network reviews it, for up to 75 days after you submit.
- You win, partly win or lose.
An inquiry is not yet a chargeback. No money leaves your account, but if it closes in the customer's favour it can escalate, and the network review for an inquiry usually takes 65 to 75 days and sometimes longer. A chargeback is different. The amount and a chargeback fee are withdrawn at once. If you win, both come back. If you partly win, part comes back. If you lose, neither does.
Fees vary by country. The page gave examples of 15 USD in the US, 10 GBP in the UK and 1,300 JPY in Japan, returned if you win. If your balance cannot cover it, the page says the amount is debited from your bank account in some countries, including the US, the UK and Canada, outside your payout schedule, and elsewhere deducted from future payouts. Shopify retries after three business days. Decisions are final, with no appeal.
Two further points. Some disputes are accepted automatically if you miss the deadline and your chance of winning is very low, and some are settled by a refund through network programmes, with no evidence window. And winning does not remove a dispute from your chargeback rate, which the page defines as disputes divided by eligible transactions in a month. High rates can affect your account standing and the features you can use.
Build the evidence before you need it
Shopify adds a lot by itself: order details, product information, customer and address, IP address, fulfilment and tracking, refund records and the customer's earlier orders. It submits them at the deadline even if you add nothing. You can add emails with the customer, proof that they accepted your policies, delivery confirmation and, for digital goods, proof of access. The page says Shopify includes an AI-written defence by default, which you can turn off, and advises putting your strongest evidence first.
That list is a guide to what to keep. If you do not record it at the time, you cannot add it later.
A routine before you ship
- Look at medium and high-risk orders before you fulfil them. Check that the shipping address makes sense for the customer and the product.
- Contact the customer through the email on the order if something looks odd. A real customer will usually reply quickly.
- For high-value orders, consider manual capture so you can verify first.
- Ship with tracking, and keep the delivery confirmation. For high-value items, think about signature on delivery.
- Make sure your policies are shown at checkout and in the confirmation email, so you can show what the customer accepted.
- Do not rely on fraud flags for POS, B2B or subscription renewals. Those need their own checks.
A routine after a dispute arrives
- Note the deadline the day it arrives, and who owns the response.
- Look at the order. Was it delivered? Was there contact with the customer? Was a refund already given?
- Decide whether it is worth fighting, weighing the amount, your fee and how strong the evidence is. Decisions are final, so do not submit a thin case without thinking.
- If you fight, add your own evidence on top of what Shopify supplies, with the strongest first.
- Record the outcome and the cause. If the same product, country or payment method keeps appearing, change the process, not just the paperwork.
Write a one-page rule for your team
Most small stores lose disputes through gaps, not bad luck: nobody owned the flagged orders, nobody saw the deadline, or the evidence was never saved. A one-page rule fixes that. State who reviews medium and high-risk orders and how fast, which orders get manual capture, how long a customer email can wait for a reply, who submits dispute evidence and who checks the chargeback rate each month. Put names next to each line and review the page every quarter.
Keep an eye on the rate
Because the chargeback rate counts disputes against eligible transactions, a small store with few orders can see a large percentage from a single dispute. Track the rate monthly, and look at causes: unclear billing names, long delivery times, unclear return policy and real fraud call for different fixes. A clear return page and fast replies to customers prevent many disputes. See our guide to returns and refunds rules and the PCI DSS guide for online stores.
The pages I read do not list reason codes or card network rules, and I cannot say how often disputes are won. Ask your payment provider.
ESTASOFT's security review page describes our security work. To talk about order flow and checks in your store, send a short brief on the contact page.
Sources
- Fraud analysis (Shopify Help Center): risk levels, indicators, options for high-risk orders, plan and order type coverage, IP blocks; page shows no date (checked 11 November 2026)
- Chargeback process (Shopify Help Center): inquiries and chargebacks, stages and deadlines, evidence, fees, no appeal, chargeback rate; page read in English on 11 November 2026, shows no date (checked 11 November 2026)