Fighting a chargeback, and what you were missing

Torqix does not process cards. When a cardholder disputes one, the letter comes from whoever does — your processor — and it arrives by email or post, not in here. Nothing in Torqix will tell you a chargeback has happened. What Torqix has is everything that proves the work: the signature, the estimate they approved, the photographs, the invoice, the payment and the conversation. This gathers it.

Disputes is on the left rail under Money & people, just below Drawer, and appears for anybody who can take a payment. Its own description says the job plainly: A chargeback is won with what was on file when the work was done. Open a dispute against the charge, build the packet, and fix what it says is missing while there is still time.

Opening a dispute

The card headed Open a dispute lists the charges taken at this shop in the last six months. Pick the one the letter names — a charge already being contested shows an Already disputed badge and cannot be picked twice.

Then say what the cardholder is claiming, from a list that covers the usual grounds — work not as described, work not received, duplicate charge, fraud, not recognised, refund not processed, other — and write it in your own words. That box becomes the cover line on the packet, so quote the processor's letter if you have it. Record the processor's name, their case reference and the date they want an answer by; the deadline is the thing you will wish you had typed in.

Nothing opens a dispute on its own. As the screen says: Nothing opens a dispute on its own. A processor may tell you first — record its case reference here so the packet carries it. A machine cannot open one either — a dispute is opened by a named person, and the record says who.

Building the packet

On the dispute, press Build the packet. It gathers what is on file at that instant and freezes it. Nothing is sent anywhere — as the empty state says, Build the packet to find out what is on file and what is not. Nothing is sent anywhere — it is assembled for you to read.

What it collects, in the order it prints:

• Signed authorization — the typed name, the drawn mark, when, from what address, and which estimate version they were looking at.
• Estimate the customer approved — every version sent, with the one they signed marked as such.
• Inspection photograph — every photo on a completed inspection, named by the finding it belongs to.
• Completed inspection — the checklist, with its red and yellow counts.
• Invoice — number, total, terms, due date.
• Payment record — the amount, the tip, the method, the reference, and who took it.
• Refund already given — reported as its own figure and never quietly netted off the disputed amount.
• Customer conversation — what they said and what you said, around the visit.

Internal notes and the team room are deliberately excluded. What your technicians said to each other is not evidence you want in front of a bank.

What "missing" means

The card headed What is missing is the part of this feature that earns its keep, and it is not an error list. It is the packet telling you what was never captured — and the useful time to read it is the first time, months before a dispute, not on the deadline.

Each gap carries a severity — Critical, Important or Note — worst first, and each one is a sentence rather than a code. Some of them can still be fixed while you are standing there: No inspection photographs. Photographs of the fault are the second-strongest thing in a packet; if the technician took any on a phone, upload them to the inspection now. Others tell you to write something down instead: No customer conversation on file. If the agreement happened on the phone, write the call up as an internal note — but say in the cover note that it was verbal.

The heaviest ones are the documents: no signed authorization, no estimate ever sent, no invoice, no payment row. A signature gap reads No signed authorization on file. This is the document that decides most chargebacks; if the customer signed on paper, scan it and attach it to the ticket.

Three states get three different words on the list, and they are not the same thing: No packet yet means nothing has been built; Nothing missing means a packet was built and found everything; 3 missing is a count. On the paper itself the heading is What was not on file when this packet was built.

One gap will fire on every packet you ever build and is not your fault: the one about a processor settlement line. Nothing in Torqix imports settlement data from a processor today, so that line can never be matched. Read it as a note about the product rather than about your paperwork.

Frozen, and what that buys you

A packet is a copy, not a view. Every item is written out with its own fingerprint, and the packet as a whole carries one too. Fix something afterwards and this packet does not change — building again produces the next packet and leaves the first exactly as it was. The button changes to Rebuild the packet once one exists.

The packet prints its own verdict on itself: a line reading verified against the contents below beside its fingerprint, or, if the two ever disagreed, DOES NOT MATCH THE CONTENTS BELOW in its place. The money on it is copied from the invoice and the payment ledger and re-totalled nowhere: Every figure above is copied from the invoice as issued or from the payment ledger. This packet re-totals nothing.

Neither you nor Torqix can edit a packet after it is built — the database allows reading and inserting and nothing else, for our own account as much as yours.

Getting it to the processor

You print it. The packet page has a Print button, which opens your browser's own print dialog — and that dialog is where a PDF comes from if the processor wants a file. The photographs are links you open while signed in, and they do not print as links on the paper.

Then you attach the images you have chosen, from the app, yourself. That is a deliberate refusal rather than a missing feature: the easy version of "email this to the processor" is a public link so a bank's adjudicator can open your customers' photographs and signatures without signing in, minted in bulk, and that door is not being built for anybody's convenience.

As you go, record what happened — evidence submitted, won, lost, withdrawn — with a note. A dispute that has finished cannot be reopened: If the processor escalates to arbitration, open a new dispute against the same charge — the history of this one stays exactly as it is.