Customer guide | Based on the current TrustPay implementation | Updated 2026-07-30
Purpose#
A Dispute Alert is an early warning received before a cardholder complaint becomes a formal dispute. It gives the merchant time to review the transaction, stop fulfillment when appropriate, preserve evidence, or issue a normal refund under the merchant's risk policy.A Dispute Alert is not a formal dispute and does not mean that a refund has already been completed.Supported Alert Sources#
The current system supports:RDR events use the same alert infrastructure but represent an automatic prevention result. See Dispute Prevention (RDR).Order Matching#
TrustPay attempts to associate an alert with the original payment order:2.
If ARN matching fails, match by masked card identity, amount, currency, and transaction time.
3.
Assign the alert only when exactly one order is matched.
An unmatched or ambiguous alert is retained for internal review but is not:sent to a merchant callback URL.
Automatic matching currently covers configured C21 Markup Payin orders that support this capability.After a Successful Match#
1.
stores the alert and order association;
2.
records the configured per-alert merchant fee;
3.
sends a type = 7 callback to the original order notify_url after billing succeeds;
4.
displays the alert, fee, and notification status in the merchant portal.
The same alert is billed only once. Callback retries do not create duplicate billing.The alert fee is deducted from the available balance. The current implementation allows the balance to become negative. A callback failure does not reverse an alert fee that was already recorded successfully.What a Dispute Alert Does Not Do#
A Dispute Alert does not:automatically refund the payment;
change the order's formal dispute status;
deduct formal dispute principal or a formal dispute processing fee;
automatically report a merchant outcome to the alert provider.
If the merchant decides to refund, use the existing refund flow and first confirm that the order has not entered a formal dispute.Recommended Merchant Action#
1.
Review the order, amount, masked card number, ARN, reason code, and transaction time.
2.
Confirm whether goods or services have already been delivered.
3.
For clear fraud, duplicate billing, or an unrecognized transaction, decide whether to stop fulfillment and issue a normal refund.
4.
Preserve order, authorization, communication, delivery, and service-usage evidence.
5.
Process the alert callback idempotently by alert_id.
Dispute Alert Callback — complete type = 7 callback contract.
Dispute Enums — alert source, category, match, fee, and notification values.
Dispute Prevention (RDR) — automatically prevented and refunded cases.
Dispute Management — formal dispute response and decision flow.
Modified at 2026-07-30 04:19:22