Shopify Chargeback Evidence Checklist: What to Pull, What to Skip, and When

Pull the right evidence first — not everything you have

When a dispute lands in Shopify Admin → Orders → Disputes, the clock starts immediately. Visa gives merchants 20 days to respond; Mastercard varies by reason code — confirm the exact deadline with your acquirer before anything else. The instinct is to grab every document in the order. That's the wrong move. Issuers review hundreds of responses. Unfocused packs get skimmed. Focused packs get read.

This checklist is organized by dispute type — not by document type. Find your reason code, pull what's listed, skip what isn't. If you're building a narrative around the evidence, that's a different task — this is triage.

One distinction before you start: this is a checklist, not an evidence pack. An evidence pack is a structured narrative document. This is the inventory step that precedes it. Don't conflate them.

Before you touch evidence: three checks in Shopify Admin

Run these before pulling a single document. They determine whether your response is even viable.

1. Confirm the deadline. In Admin → Orders → Disputes, the dispute card shows the response due date. If it's within 48 hours, escalate internally now — not after evidence collection.
2. Check the reason code. The reason code determines what evidence is relevant. A fraud code and an INR code require completely different responses. Responding to a fraud code with delivery confirmation alone is a common losing pattern.
3. Check fulfillment status. In the order detail, confirm the fulfillment event timestamps. If the order shows fulfilled but the tracking hasn't updated in the carrier system, note the gap — issuers will.

Master checklist by dispute type

Use the section that matches your reason code. Items marked [Required] are non-negotiable for a viable response. Items marked [Supporting] strengthen the case but won't carry it alone. Items marked [Situational] apply only in specific scenarios noted.

Fraud / Unauthorized Transaction (Visa 10.4, MC 4837, Amex FR2)

Item Not Received / INR (Visa 13.1, MC 4853-INR)

Significantly Not as Described / SNAD (Visa 13.3, MC 4853-SNAD)

Decision point: CE 3.0 or standard fraud response?

If your dispute is a Visa fraud code (10.4) and the cardholder has prior non-disputed transactions with your store, check CE 3.0 eligibility before building your standard response.

Path A — CE 3.0 eligible: Two or more prior non-disputed Visa transactions from the same cardholder, within 120 days, with matching device or IP signals. If this applies, CE 3.0 shifts the burden back to the issuer and can result in a pre-arbitration win without a full evidence pack. Pull the prior transaction records from Shopify Admin → Customers → [Customer] → Order history and confirm with your acquirer that CE 3.0 is supported on your account.

Path B — Standard fraud response: No prior transaction history, or the cardholder is new. Build the standard authorization-evidence stack: AVS/CVV results, IP, device, delivery confirmation. This is the default path for most merchants. The risk: without prior transaction history, you're proving authorization alone — and authorization doesn't prove the cardholder made the purchase.

Choosing Path A when you don't actually qualify is worse than Path B. Issuers flag CE 3.0 submissions that don't meet the criteria, and it can affect your standing. Confirm eligibility before committing to that path. For more on CE 3.0 mechanics, see the Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 article in this cluster.

The $340 apparel order that had most of it — and still lost

A merchant shipped a $340 apparel order. AVS matched. CVV matched. Carrier showed delivered. The fraud dispute came in 18 days later. The merchant submitted AVS results, tracking confirmation, and the order receipt.

What they missed: the IP at checkout resolved to a VPN exit node in a different state. The Shopify Fraud Analysis panel flagged it as medium risk. The merchant didn't check it before submitting. The issuer's review noted the IP inconsistency, discounted the AVS match as insufficient standalone authorization, and ruled for the cardholder.

The evidence wasn't incomplete — it was unreviewed. The merchant submitted without running the three pre-checks above. The IP flag was visible in Admin the entire time. Delivery confirmation doesn't override an authorization signal that the issuer reads as compromised. For more on when delivery proof stops working, see the article on when delivery proof is not enough.

Evidence narrative line (adapt for your submission)

Use this as the opening line of your evidence narrative — not as a template to copy verbatim:

"The order was placed on [date] from IP [X], which resolves to [city, state] — consistent with the billing address on file. AVS returned Y (full match); CVV returned M. The order was fulfilled on [date] and delivered to the billing address on [date] per carrier scan. The cardholder did not contact us prior to filing this dispute."

If any of those fields are blank or inconsistent, resolve them before submitting — don't leave gaps for the issuer to fill in against you.

Internal note format (for dispute logging)

Log this in your dispute tracker or Shopify order notes immediately after pulling evidence:

Dispute [ID] | Code: [reason code] | AVS: [result] | CVV: [result] | IP flag: [clean/flagged] | Delivery: [confirmed/unconfirmed] | Prior orders: [Y/N, count] | CE 3.0 eligible: [Y/N] | Deadline: [date] | Assigned: [name]

This single line surfaces the decision-relevant signals without requiring someone to re-open the order. It also creates an audit trail if the dispute escalates to arbitration.

What to skip

These items appear in many chargeback responses and rarely change outcomes:

• Terms of service pages — issuers don't weigh them heavily unless the dispute is specifically about policy violation
• Marketing emails sent to the customer — not authorization evidence
• Screenshots of your store's homepage — irrelevant to any reason code
• Partial tracking screenshots — always pull the full carrier history PDF; partial screenshots invite questions about what's missing
• Customer reviews of your store — not evidence of this transaction

Every page you add that doesn't answer the issuer's specific question dilutes the pages that do. Issuers are not looking for volume — they're looking for the answer to one question: did this cardholder authorize this transaction, receive this item, or receive what they ordered? Build toward that question only.

Submission mechanics in Shopify

In Admin → Orders → Disputes → [Dispute], use the Submit response button to upload evidence. Shopify accepts PDF, JPG, and PNG. File size limits apply — confirm current limits in the Disputes interface, as they change. Combine multi-page documents into a single PDF rather than uploading individual pages. Issuers receive a compiled packet; fragmented uploads can display out of order.

The Rebuttal letter field in the Shopify dispute submission form is where your evidence narrative goes — not a separate attachment. Keep it under 500 words. Issuers read the narrative first; the attachments are supporting documentation, not the argument itself.

For a broader operational context on how disputes move through the lifecycle after submission, the Shopify chargebacks practical guide covers the full arc from dispute receipt to issuer decision.