For: Finance contacts, operations managers, and Prommt account administrators across all sectors.
What is a chargeback?
A chargeback is when a cardholder disputes a transaction with their bank and requests the funds be returned. The bank investigates and — if they find in the cardholder's favour — reverses the payment, debiting the funds from the merchant.
Chargebacks are most commonly raised for:
Fraud — the cardholder didn't authorise the transaction and believes their card was used without their knowledge
Non-delivery — goods or services weren't received
Dispute — the cardholder disagrees with the charge amount or what they received
For businesses collecting deposits, pre-payments, and remote payments, fraud-related chargebacks are the primary concern — and the one Prommt is specifically designed to address.
How Prommt protects you from fraud chargebacks
Card payments — 3DS2 liability shift
Every card payment request sent via Prommt is protected by 3D Secure 2 (3DS2) authentication. This is the step where the customer's bank verifies the cardholder's identity before approving the transaction.
When a payment is fully authenticated under 3DS2 — confirmed by an ECI 05 (Visa) or ECI 02 (Mastercard / Amex) code — fraud liability shifts from your business to the card issuer. If the cardholder later disputes that payment as fraudulent, the issuing bank carries the liability, not you.
In practical terms: a successfully authenticated Prommt card payment is extremely difficult to chargeback on fraud grounds. The card issuer verified the cardholder's identity before the money moved — they own that outcome.
For more on how 3DS2 works and ECI codes, see Understanding 3D Secure 2 and Strong Customer Authentication and Understanding ECI codes on failed payments.
Pay by Bank — zero chargeback exposure
For accounts with Pay by Bank enabled, the protection is even stronger. Pay by Bank payments — made directly from the customer's bank account via open banking — carry no chargeback exposure whatsoever.
Unlike card transactions, open banking payments are account-to-account transfers. There is no card scheme, no issuer dispute process, and no mechanism for a payment to be reversed by a third party after it's been made. Pay by Bank has a 100% success rate in preventing chargebacks.
For high-value transactions — vehicle deposits, order payments, account settlements, and pre-payments of any kind — Pay by Bank removes chargeback risk entirely. It also eliminates card processing fees on those transactions.
If your account doesn't have Pay by Bank enabled and you'd like to explore it, contact your Prommt Account Manager.
What Prommt's protection does and doesn't cover
3DS2 liability shift protects against fraud chargebacks — where a cardholder claims they didn't authorise the payment.
It does not protect against:
Service chargebacks — where a customer disputes the charge because they believe the service wasn't delivered or wasn't as described. These are resolved through your normal dispute process with the card scheme.
Friendly fraud — where a customer knowingly disputes a legitimate charge. While 3DS2 makes these harder to win, a determined customer can still raise a dispute. Your best defence here is clear documentation: payment receipts, order or booking confirmations, and terms and conditions accepted at checkout.
To strengthen your position on service-related disputes, make sure:
Terms and conditions are enabled on your Prommt checkout — customers must accept them before paying. See General settings: Checkout and Payment Links.
Custom Fields carry your internal reference — order number, account reference, confirmation number — linking the payment clearly to the underlying transaction record. See Setting up Custom Fields.
Payment receipts are sent and retained — Prommt issues these automatically after every successful payment.
If a chargeback is raised
Chargebacks are managed between your business and your payment gateway (Adyen, FreedomPay, or similar). Prommt is not a party to the dispute process — the gateway is where evidence is submitted and the case is handled.
What to do when you receive a chargeback notification
Log into your payment gateway portal — Adyen Customer Area, FreedomPay merchant portal, or your gateway's equivalent. The chargeback notification and response deadline will be there.
Locate the original payment in Prommt — go to View Payments, find the payment by date, amount, or customer name, and open the payment record.
Gather your evidence. For a fraud chargeback on a Prommt payment, the key evidence is:
The Payment Gateway Response showing 3DS2 authentication completed (ECI 05 or ECI 02)
The payment receipt issued to the customer
The order, booking, or account record linked via Custom Fields or your back-office system
Any terms and conditions the customer accepted at checkout
Correspondence confirming the customer's identity and transaction details
Submit your evidence via your gateway portal before the response deadline. Deadlines are strict — missing them typically results in an automatic finding for the cardholder.
Contact your Prommt Account Manager if you need help pulling payment data or need confirmation of authentication status on a specific transaction. We can assist with evidence gathering, but the submission itself goes through your gateway.
A note on Autocharge and Recurring Plan payments
Payments taken via Autocharge or Recurring Plans use a stored card — the card was captured and the customer consented during the initial activation payment, which went through 3DS2. Subsequent automatic charges are merchant-initiated transactions and are processed under the agreement established at activation.
If a chargeback is raised on an Autocharge or Recurring Plan payment, the activation receipt and the customer's consent record at the time of card capture are your primary evidence. Keep these readily accessible.