Non-delivery chargebacks: AI gathers proof, a person checks by the deadline
For non-delivery chargebacks, tie delivery, contact and refund records to order IDs; a person checks by the deadline.
Key points
- Get delivery proof before the rebuttal
- Tie records to order IDs on one sheet
- Staff decide to submit; AI gathers proof
- Fix missing records from past disputes
Contents
Get delivery proof before writing a rebuttal
A&A perspective
For a "product not received" chargeback, have the record that delivery was completed ready before you write any rebuttal. A chargeback is a request by the person who paid by card asking the card issuer to reverse the payment; the seller answers it by submitting evidence before a deadline. This article also calls these requests disputes.
From the sources
Stripe, a company that provides online payments and related infrastructure, published an analysis of non-delivery disputes on its blog on July 21, 2026. It writes that disputes in which the cardholder says the item never arrived are the most common nonfraud dispute category on Stripe.
From the sources
Stripe analyzed the evidence from one million disputes filed over 16 weeks. It compared the win rate, the share of disputes the seller won, between disputes that included a given piece of evidence and disputes that did not. It explains that it then isolated which evidence correlated with higher win rates.
From the sources
For businesses selling physical goods, disputes that included delivery confirmation had a win rate 27 percentage points higher than disputes that did not. A percentage point here is the gap between two win rates expressed as percentages.
From the sources
Adding a GPS delivery map showing where the carrier scanned the package raised the rate by another 15 points. Adding a delivery signature raised it by a further 2 points. Disputes with all three were 44 points higher.
From the sources
Timing made a difference too. Disputes whose evidence was submitted after delivery was confirmed had a win rate 27 points higher than disputes without delivery confirmation. Disputes whose evidence was submitted while the package was still in transit were only 2 points higher.
From the sources
Noting that most businesses have 20 or more days to respond, Stripe suggests holding the submission until the carrier confirms arrival if the dispute window allows it.
From the sources
For digital goods such as downloads and videos, the evidence looks different.
From the sources
Activity and usage logs showing that the buyer streamed, downloaded or opened the product raised the win rate by 10 points. Records showing only that the product had been made available raised it by 8 points.
A&A perspective
Automate & Augment (A&A), the company writing this article, does not read these numbers as a promise that adding evidence will win a dispute.
A&A perspective
The analysis compared disputes with and without each piece of evidence; it did not test whether adding evidence makes a seller win. Even so, A&A reads an order of work in it: prepare the record showing the item arrived before you write the rebuttal.
Tie records to order IDs: delivery, contact, refund
A&A perspective
Tie the three records, delivery confirmation, customer communication and refund status, to the order ID and put them on one sheet. The order ID is the number given to each order. This article calls that sheet the evidence packet.
From the sources
According to Stripe, many businesses still leave delivery confirmation out of their dispute responses. Part of the gap is awareness, it writes, but the bigger barrier is operational.
From the sources
For most businesses, shipping data and dispute workflows live in separate systems. Matching a dispute to the right order and its delivery status often takes manual work and is hard to scale, Stripe says.
From the sources
Refund records serve as evidence too. Cardholders can still open a dispute after a refund has been processed.
From the sources
Among businesses selling digital goods, disputes that included a full refund issued through Stripe had a win rate 63 points higher. Refunds issued through other channels, such as store credit for a future purchase, lifted it by only 6 points.
From the sources
Stripe writes that this might be because card issuers can only act on information they can verify. When a refund goes through the payment processor, the issuer can verify that credit on the card network.
A&A perspective
A&A reads this as saying that the work comes less from what the evidence is than from the records sitting in separate places. When the three rows of the table live on different screens, every dispute starts with a search, and the deadline draws closer while you look.
Hypothetical example
Take, for example, a company that sells consumables to other businesses online and accepts card payments. The goal is that when a dispute arrives, typing in the order ID brings the three rows of the table up on one sheet. An empty row shows where a record is not yet connected.
| Record | Example contents | Where it usually lives |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery confirmation | Tracking number, time of delivery, delivery signature; for digital goods, usage logs | Carrier's screen, shipping records |
| Customer communication | Shipping notice, inquiries and replies | Email, support inbox |
| Refund status | Whether refunded, the date, how it was returned | Payment service's screen, accounting records |
AI gathers evidence; staff decide to submit by the deadline
A&A perspective
Gathering the evidence and assembling it on one sheet can be left to AI. Whether to submit it, though, is a decision staff make before the deadline.
From the sources
Stripe offers Smart Disputes, a feature that uses AI to assemble and submit dispute evidence. Its documentation page still marks it as a public preview.
From the sources
Smart Disputes draws its evidence from Stripe's own data, the seller's transaction data and the cardholder's data. For eligible disputes, it assembles that evidence to fit the reason given for the dispute.
From the sources
According to the blog, if you give Stripe the carrier and the tracking number, it pulls in the shipping history from more than 12 carriers. Customer communications can be added to the evidence as well.
From the sources
If the seller takes no action, Smart Disputes submits the prepared evidence automatically just before the deadline. This automatic submission can be turned off in the settings.
From the sources
The documentation says the evidence contains the data Stripe has when the packet is generated, and that the seller is responsible for making sure that data is accurate and complete. Stripe does not guarantee a win; the final decision lies with the card issuer. It advises looking into each dispute individually to decide how to respond.
A&A perspective
A&A reads this as leaving a decision for a person. Before the deadline, a person checks three things, for example. Has the order already been refunded? Has the matter been settled with the customer in some other way? Was delivery completed?
A&A perspective
Turning off automatic submission brings the risk of losing on a missed deadline. Rather than deciding up front whether to turn it off, A&A thinks it works better to fix a review day a few days before the deadline. That way you get both the speed of AI and a person's judgment.
Before rollout, fix missing records in past disputes
A&A perspective
Before you bring in a system that assembles evidence packets with AI, recheck past disputes by order ID and fix the missing records first.
A&A perspective
Pick a few recent disputes and, using only the order ID, look for the three rows of the table. If most orders have all three, letting AI gather them will give you evidence with substance. If many rows are missing, start by connecting those records to the order ID.
A&A perspective
Check each row this way. The delivery row: can you pull up the tracking number and the time of delivery from the order ID? The customer row: do the shipping notice and any inquiries come up under the same order ID? The refund row: can you see on the payment service's screen whether a refund was made, and on what date?
From the sources
The Smart Disputes documentation also describes how eligibility is decided. The factors include the dispute reason code, the payment method, whether evidence is available, whether it is relevant, and cost.
A&A perspective
A&A thinks AI can only gather records that are already connected. If records stay scattered across separate systems, a packet assembled automatically tends to come out thin.
Hypothetical example
Suppose, as a hypothetical, a company receives four non-delivery disputes a month and its average order is 30,000 yen. If it cannot respond in time and loses all four, 120,000 yen a month does not come back.
Hypothetical example
Set that amount against the effort of connecting the records and the cost of the system, and you can see how many months it takes to pay back. These numbers are hypothetical; in practice, put in your own dispute count and amounts and compare.
A&A perspective
For a company with only a few disputes a year and small orders, collecting the evidence by hand or simply refunding can cost less than building a system.
Summary
A&A perspective
For a non-delivery chargeback, get the delivery confirmation record ready before the rebuttal. Tie the delivery, customer contact and refund status records to the order ID and put them on one sheet, the evidence packet.
A&A perspective
Gathering the evidence can be left to AI, but staff decide before the deadline whether to submit it. Before rollout, recheck past disputes by order ID and fix the missing records first.
What to put in order first for a non-delivery chargeback is not the rebuttal but the delivery, contact and refund records you can pull up by order ID. What to decide next, after rechecking a few recent disputes, is whether to let AI gather the evidence or to connect the records first.
FAQ
Is submitting just the tracking number enough?
Not always. Depending on the package's status when you submit, Stripe says a tracking number might only confirm that the package left your facility. If you cannot wait for delivery confirmation, it advises adding documentation showing that the order is still within the delivery time frame the customer agreed to at checkout.
Does this approach work if we don't use Stripe?
A&A thinks it does. Tying delivery, customer communication and refund status to the order ID is work done on your own records. However, the numbers in this article and the way Smart Disputes works are Stripe's. Other payment services may not offer the same feature.
Will the win-rate gaps in Stripe's analysis hold for our company?
Not necessarily. Stripe states that the blog post is for informational purposes only and that actual results may differ materially. The final decision lies with the card issuer.
Sources & editorial note
Primary pages read for this article. Publication dates below belong to the sources; access dates record our research.
- Analyzing the evidence that helps businesses win product-not-received disputes
Stripe · 2026-07-21
Accessed 2026-10-25 - Smart Disputes
Stripe · Publication date not stated on page
Accessed 2026-10-25