Guide to Chargebacks

The cardholder’s card issuer will lodge a dispute through the relevant card scheme (typically Mastercard®, Visa®, UnionPay or eftpos), and the card scheme will, in turn, raise a chargeback with St.George.

We will notify you (via a letter and/or email) to let you know that one of your transactions has been disputed. In the notification, we may request some information about the transaction from you, which may include:

• the terms and conditions of the initial sale
• the order form, invoice or other sales record
• a signed delivery receipt or another confirmation of delivery
• correspondence (if any) from the cardholder.

We may also request additional supporting documents as evidence. Always respond promptly within the timeframes specified in your chargeback notification.

A condition of your merchant facility is to provide St.George with a valid email address. To ensure we can contact you promptly, please keep your contact details, including your email address and phone number up to date.

To update your merchant facility details, please complete the Change your address (PDF 808KB)  form, available on  our Merchant Forms page or contact our Merchant Helpdesk on 1300 650 977 (available 24/7).

Once we have gathered all the necessary information about the transaction, we’ll evaluate whether we have enough evidence to challenge the chargeback. If we do, then we’ll submit all the relevant information you provided to the card scheme. The card scheme will then make the final decision. 

If you disagree with the assessment or outcome of the chargeback you can contact our Merchant Chargebacks team on 1300 650 977 (8:30am-4:30pm Mon-Fri Sydney time) or by email at merchantchargebackssgb@westpac.com.au. You will need to provide additional evidence to support your dispute.

Refer to the information types set out in Step 3.

There are two possible outcomes from the assessment:

1. The chargeback is ruled in favour of the cardholder– If the request is determined as being valid, the transaction amount will be debited from your merchant facility bank account and a chargeback fee may be applied.

2. The chargeback is ruled in your favour – If the card scheme determines the chargeback is not valid, no debit will be passed onto you and no chargeback fee will be applied to your merchant facility bank account.

A debit or credit card is issued by a card issuer (e.g. a bank, financial institution or credit provider), but the card schemes like Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay and eftpos set the rules around chargebacks. The card schemes issue chargeback rules for merchants, cardholders, and card issuers to ensure that chargeback processes are applied consistently. The card schemes outline the chargebacks that are automatic and the ones you can dispute.

• Download the Visa chargeback guidelines
• Download the Mastercard chargeback guidelines
• Download the eftpos chargeback guideliness

Some chargebacks can be challenged. It’s important to familiarise yourself with the chargeback guidelines set out by the schemes. If you are unable to provide satisfactory evidence to challenge the chargeback, the dispute may become an automatic chargeback and your merchant facility bank account may be automatically debited.

If you would like to challenge a chargeback, please contact our Merchant Chargebacks team on 1300 650 977 (8:30am-4:30pm Mon-Fri Sydney time) or by email at merchantchargebackssgb@westpac.com.au.

We understand it can be frustrating for your merchant facility bank account to be debited before a case is decided, but we need to ensure that funds are available if the chargeback is decided in the cardholder’s favour. Should the case be resolved in your favour, the funds will be returned to your merchant facility bank account, as per the original transaction.

Be careful when processing manually keyed transactions for online and Mail Order and Telephone orders (also known as MOTO). These transactions carry a higher chargeback risk and are prone to fraud because it is difficult for merchants to verify the cardholder’s identity. Fraudsters often exploit this vulnerability by using stolen cards or using stolen card numbers and claiming that the original card is 'damaged’. Learn more about how to avoid and respond to fraud and scams.

We will send you a letter and/or email to notify you of a chargeback. We need to be able to contact you during the process, so please make sure all your contact details, including your email address and phone number are up to date.

A condition of your merchant facility is to provide St.George with a valid email address. To ensure we can contact you promptly, please keep your contact details, including your email address and phone number up to date. 

To update your merchant facility details, please complete the Change your address (PDF 808KB) form, available on our Merchant Forms  page or contact our Merchant Helpdesk on 1300 650 977 (available 24/7).

The card schemes like Visa and Mastercard recommend that you keep your merchant receipts for up to 540 days (about 18 months) from the date of purchase. Your merchant receipts can be maintained in physical or electronic form or both.

However, for general tax purposes, merchants may need to keep their receipts for a longer period. You should refer to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for more details.