Disputes

When a customer disputes a payment with their bank or PayPal, LicenseDock suspends their access while the dispute is open. It restores access if you win and revokes it if you lose. All of this runs from the gateway webhooks, so the dispute events must be selected on the Stripe and PayPal webhooks.

Dispute opened

What	Change
Order status	Disputed
Licenses on the order	Suspended
Order transactions	A Chargeback transaction, pending, with the disputed amount and the gateway's reason
Subscription timeline	A Suspended event with the dispute ID, reason and amount
Admin email	Chargeback / Dispute Opened, with the order, customer, product, gateway, dispute ID, reason and amount

Subscription billing isn't touched and the customer isn't emailed. Suspended licenses fail activation and validation through the License API until the dispute closes.

Only orders with the status Completed or Partially Refunded can move to Disputed. A disputed order can't be refunded from admin until the dispute closes.

Respond to the dispute in the gateway's dashboard. LicenseDock only follows the outcome.

Dispute won

What	Change
Order status	Back to Completed, or Partially Refunded if it had earlier refunds
Licenses	Reactivated
Chargeback transaction	Marked failed (the chargeback didn't stand)
Admin email	Chargeback / Dispute Resolved, outcome won

Dispute lost

A lost dispute ends access the same way a full refund does:

What	Change
Order status	Refunded, or Partially Refunded when the dispute covered only one of several payments on the order
Amount recorded	The disputed amount, capped at what is still unrefunded on the order
Licenses	Revoked
Subscriptions	Cancelled in LicenseDock and at the gateway, so the customer isn't charged again
Chargeback transaction	Marked successful. It counts toward the order's refunded total
Invoice	The invoice for the disputed payment goes back to unpaid for the amount lost. No credit note is issued
Customer emails	Refund Issued, plus the subscription cancellation email for each cancelled subscription
Admin emails	Refund Issued and Chargeback / Dispute Resolved, outcome lost

How each gateway reports outcomes

Gateway	Opened	Closed	Counted as won	Counted as lost
Stripe	charge.dispute.created	charge.dispute.closed	won, warning_closed	lost
PayPal	CUSTOMER.DISPUTE.CREATED	CUSTOMER.DISPUTE.RESOLVED	RESOLVED_SELLER_FAVOUR, DENIED, CANCELED_BY_BUYER	Any other outcome, including RESOLVED_BUYER_FAVOUR and RESOLVED_WITH_REFUND
Mollie	Chargeback on the payment notification	Same notification	–	Always

The dispute is matched to the exact payment it was raised against. On a renewed subscription, only that renewal payment is affected in the invoices and refund totals, though access is suspended or revoked for the whole order.

Mollie chargebacks

Mollie reports a chargeback after the bank has already taken the money back, with no open and close stages. LicenseDock opens the dispute and records it as lost in one step, so access is revoked straight away.

If the chargeback is later reversed in your favour, LicenseDock doesn't change the order. Restore the customer's access by hand.

Out-of-order events

A gateway can deliver the closing event before the opening one has been processed. LicenseDock asks the gateway to retry the closing event until the opening one lands. If the dispute is more than three days old and its opening event still hasn't arrived (for example because the webhook was set up after the dispute started), the closing event is logged and dropped, and the order is left as it was.

Finding disputes

• Orders – filter by status Disputed.
• Orders → View – the Transactions list shows the Chargeback row with its amount, status and the gateway dispute ID as the reference. The reason is in the admin email.
• Subscription Events – the Suspended entry for each affected subscription.
• Webhook Log – the dispute events as received.
• The two admin emails can be edited under Email Templates (Chargeback / Dispute Opened and Chargeback / Dispute Resolved).