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Triage the dispute inbox and understand case stages

Use filters, deadlines, lifecycle stages, and reasons to prioritize work.

Written by Mike Hammon

Prioritize deadlines, then understand the case

Annotated dispute inbox with Action required and response deadlines

Inbox procedure

  1. Select Action required.

  2. Sort by the earliest seller response due time.

  3. Use search or filters for a dispute ID, Shopify order, transaction, status, or operational owner.

  4. Open the nearest deadline and confirm the amount and linked records.

  5. Assign an internal owner before preparing a response.

Tabs

  • All: every stored case in the current result set.

  • Action required: cases where PayPal is waiting for the merchant.

  • Open: active cases without the selected required-action classification.

  • Under review: PayPal is reviewing submitted information.

  • Appeal available: resolved cases for which PayPal currently exposes an appeal action.

  • Resolved: cases with a current decision.

Annotated dispute detail showing deadline, lifecycle, actions, evidence, and activity

Status, lifecycle, and reason are different

Status describes the case's current working state. Lifecycle stage describes where it is in PayPal's process, such as Inquiry, Chargeback, Pre-arbitration, or Arbitration. Reason describes the buyer's classification, such as unauthorized transaction, item not received, item not as described, duplicate transaction, credit not processed, or incorrect amount.

Case-reading order

  1. Response deadline and disputed amount.

  2. Reason, lifecycle stage, channel, created time, updated time, and outcome.

  3. Shopify order and PayPal transaction links.

  4. Requested and already submitted evidence.

  5. Buyer, merchant, PayPal, and system activity in time order.

  6. The actions PayPal currently allows.

Do not select evidence or an action using the status label alone.

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