Use casesFinancial institutions & fintech

  • Bank
  • Participation bank
  • Payment and e-money

Card disputes and chargebacks

Cardholders object through the app, the call center, and the branch every day; each objection needs the right scheme condition and its evidence before the time limit runs out.

With the systemEach objection read, the transaction and its records gathered, the condition and last day set; the specialist decides.

Who decides
Card disputes specialist

Mobile app · objection · 4 November 2026Illustrative

Credit card · transaction objection

I do not recognize the 28 October charge from a foreign website. My card has never left my hands, and I did not get any code by text message.

→ Visa 10.4 · no 3D Secure · last day 26 February 2027

The document as it arrives. In red, what the system marks for your expert.

1. The work

Today

  1. ReceiveObjections arrive through the mobile app, internet banking, the call center, the branch, and written complaints: a purchase the cardholder does not recognize, goods that never came, a canceled subscription still charged, a charge taken twice.
  2. GatherA disputes specialist finds the transaction and opens the authorization log, the clearing record, the 3D Secure result, the card's status, and the merchant's details, screen by screen, and asks the cardholder for what is missing.
  3. MatchThey pick the card scheme's dispute condition by hand (fraud, authorization, processing error, or consumer dispute) and work out its last day from the processing date.
  4. WriteThe answer to the cardholder is written with its reasons and sent within twenty days; the dispute text for the scheme is written separately, with the evidence the condition asks for.
  5. DecideThe specialist decides each case from the same growing queue: refund the cardholder, raise a dispute (a chargeback) with the merchant's bank, or answer that the objection does not hold; later, whether to take the merchant's response to pre-arbitration.

With the system

  1. ReceiveThe SLM reads each objection, whatever the channel, and the papers attached (a receipt, a cancellation email, a courier record), and returns the claim, the transaction it names, and the cardholder's own words.SLM
  2. GatherThe agent, with read-only access, matches the transaction, pulls its authorization, clearing, and 3D Secure records, the card's status, and earlier objections, and lists the evidence still missing.Agentic AI
  3. MatchYour scheme rule table, run as code, not a model, names the dispute condition the facts fit for the card's scheme, its last day, and the evidence it needs.Your rule
  4. WriteThe SLM drafts the answer to the cardholder in your template, with its reasons, and the dispute text for the scheme, marking every gap for the specialist.SLM
  5. DecideThe card disputes specialist checks the file and decides, as before: refund, raise the dispute, or answer that the objection does not hold; nothing reaches the scheme or the cardholder until the specialist sends it.Person decides

What lands on the desk

The specialist gets the objection already read, the transaction's records already pulled, and the scheme condition, its last day, and the evidence it needs already set by your own rule table. Both drafts are ready; the specialist decides and sends.

FIG. 1 · Card dispute fileIllustrative
Mobile app · credit card · objection 04.11.2026Purchase not recognized, card in hand

SLM · what the cardholder says

  • ClaimDoes not recognize an online purchase; the card never left them
  • TransactionOne charge at a foreign online merchant, 28.10.2026
  • AttachedNothing; the cardholder says the card is in hand

Agent · records found, read-only

  • metTransaction matched in clearingclearing
  • flagged3D Secure authentication3D Secure lognot used
  • Card reported lost or stolenno
  • Earlier objections by this cardholdernone

Rule table · condition and last day

  • ConditionVisa 10.4, Other Fraud – Card-Absent EnvironmentVisa Core Rules
  • Last day26.02.2027, 120 calendar days from processing
  • EvidenceThe cardholder's statement denying the purchase
  • Answer dueWithin twenty days of the objection5464 art. 11

SLM · drafts

Ready in your templates: the answer to the cardholder with its reasons, and the dispute text stating that the cardholder denies the purchase.

  • SLM
  • Agent
  • Code

Why a person decidesThe specialist decides whether to refund, raise the dispute, or answer that the objection does not hold, and sends both.

DecidesCard disputes specialist

2. The system

For your technical team — skip it if you like.

How it works

In

  • App, online banking, and call-center objections
  • Branch forms and written complaints
  • Attached receipts, emails, and screenshots

  1. SLM · understands

    Objection reader

    Fine-tuned to return the claim, the transaction, and the evidence

    Reads

    • Everything under In

    Out

    • Claim: not recognized, not received, duplicate
    • The transaction: date, merchant, channel
    • Evidence attached, and what is missing

  2. Agent · prepares

    Dispute-file agent

    Fixed workflow, read-only

    Reads

    • The claim and the transaction it names

    Out

    • Authorization and clearing records
    • 3D Secure result and card status
    • Merchant, category, and earlier objections
    • Missing evidence listed

  3. Code · calculates

    Scheme rule table

    Your written scheme rules, run as code; no model

    Reads

    • The claim and the records
    • The card's scheme
    • The processing date

    Out

    • The dispute condition the facts fit
    • Its last day to raise the dispute
    • The evidence that condition needs

  4. SLM · understands

    Answer writer

    The same SLM, in your answer and dispute templates

    Reads

    • The dispute file
    • Your templates

    Out

    • The cardholder's answer, with reasons
    • The dispute text for the scheme
    • Gaps marked for the specialist

  5. Decision

    Card disputes specialist

    Reads

    • The dispute file and the drafts

    Out

    • Refunds, raises the dispute, or answers that the objection does not hold
    • Sends the answer within the twenty days
    • Decides on pre-arbitration when the merchant's bank responds
How the agent's work is arrangedFixed workflow

Fixed workflow

Every objection takes the same steps in the same order (match the transaction, pull its records, list what is missing, hand over to the rule table), so a fixed workflow fits and leaves the agent nothing to choose.

How the models are trained and tested

Your expert writes the test first. A step the test does not need is skipped, and we say why.

Show the training steps

Small language model (SLM)

  1. Test set

    300–600 recent objections from every channel, labeled by your senior disputes specialists with the claim, the transaction, and the condition, plus 100–200 answers they grade against your template.

  2. Dataset

    Past objections, the files your team built, and the answers sent; card numbers and personal data masked in training copies.

  3. Continued pre-training (CPT)If needed

    Only if the base model fails the test on card and scheme vocabulary.

  4. Supervised fine-tuning (SFT)

    On reading each channel's objections and on your answer and dispute templates.

  5. Reinforcement learning (RL)Skipped

    Skipped: reading claims and writing to a template are taught by fine-tuning, and no further reward is needed.

  6. Retrieval

    Retrieval supplies the current scheme rules and your templates; the condition and the last day come from the rule table, never from the model.

  7. Monitoring

    The specialist reviews every draft; each new edition of a scheme's rules triggers a re-test of the rule table and the drafts before it applies.

Where the agentic system stops

The card disputes specialist decides every objection: refund the cardholder, raise the dispute with the merchant's bank, or answer that the objection does not hold, and sends the answer and the dispute.

Show its tools, limits, and record
Tools and access
Reads the objection channels and document management; read-only card management, authorization, clearing, and 3D Secure records; writes only the dispute file.
May not
Refund or credit the cardholder, block or reissue a card, raise or withdraw a dispute, accept the merchant's response, contact the cardholder or the merchant, or grant itself any access.
Who decides and the written limit
Card disputes specialistThe card disputes specialist decides every objection: refund the cardholder, raise the dispute with the merchant's bank, or answer that the objection does not hold, and sends the answer and the dispute. The system never refunds, never raises or withdraws a dispute, never accepts the merchant's response, and never contacts the cardholder or the merchant; any doubt, and any sign of the cardholder's own fraud, goes to the specialist.
Stops when
A transaction it cannot match with confidence, a claim no condition in the table fits, a last day nearer than your policy allows, or signs of the cardholder's own fraud: the file goes to the specialist, marked.
Record
The objection and its channel, every record pulled, the rule-table version, the condition and last day it gave, the drafts, and who decided and sent.

How agentic systems stay inside limits

3. Value and conditions

Where the time goes, and what your institution will measure.

Where the value comes from

  1. Answers sent within the twenty days.
  2. Disputes raised before the scheme's last day, with the evidence they need.
  3. Specialist hours freed for the contested cases.

What your institution measures

  • Share of objections answered on time
  • Disputes lost for a missed time limit or missing evidence
  • Refunds made without a dispute raised
  • Specialist time per objection

Measured in the Decision Blueprint

Today's on-time share, the disputes lost for time or evidence, and specialist time per objection, from your dispute log, set the baseline; your institution sets the target.

Conditions

The rules, the data, and the known error, with its guard.

  • A cardholder may object to a credit card statement within ten days of its due date, saying which items and why, or the statement becomes final, though a court claim stays open; every card complaint and objection is answered with reasons, through the cardholder's own channel, within twenty days (Law 5464 art. 11).
  • When a customer says a payment was not theirs, the payment provider must prove it was authorized and recorded correctly; a correction may be asked for within thirteen months, and once the payment is shown unauthorized it is refunded at once (TCMB payment services regulation art. 54). For a lost or stolen card, the cardholder's share of the loss before reporting it is capped by law (Law 5464 art. 12).
  • The dispute conditions and their time limits are the card scheme's: Visa groups them as fraud, authorization, processing errors, and consumer disputes, each condition with its own time limit (Visa Core Rules, October 2026 edition). Your rule table holds each scheme's current rules; no model sets them.
  • No machine-learning model is needed here: the condition and the last day are written rules, run as code. A model estimating the chance of winning a dispute could follow once your own outcomes by condition are recorded. Card data stays on your servers, masked in training copies.

Start here

We take a month of objections with your disputes team, time each step from receipt to answer, collect your scheme rule tables and templates, and test the objection reader on your own objections before anything is built.

Who builds it Every engagement is led by an engineer who has built machine-learning models that real decisions run on since 2012, and language models and agentic systems in production since 2024. About eqlx

Request a Decision BlueprintWhat the Decision Blueprint covers

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https://eqlx.ai/use-cases/card-disputes · Printed copy; the website is the current version.