dispute
A dispute is a cardholder's challenge to a card payment, raised through their bank under scheme rules. It may begin as a request for information and become a chargeback if the business does not resolve it. Providers use "dispute" for the whole process from first challenge to final decision.
Dispute is the umbrella word; chargeback is the stage where money moves. A cardholder questions a payment, the issuing bank asks the acquirer about it, and the business gets a chance to explain or refund before the bank reverses the payment. If the business responds well at the enquiry stage, many disputes end there. If not, the chargeback follows, with its fee and its effect on the business's ratio.
Why it matters to a business: the first message is the cheap moment. A refund issued when the enquiry arrives costs the refund. The same refund after a chargeback costs the refund, the chargeback fee and a mark against the account. Most disputes on a well-run business are confusion rather than fraud, a statement descriptor the customer did not recognise, or a subscription they forgot. Both are fixable upstream.
For a software platform, the dispute is a workflow that belongs inside the product. The customer's user should see the dispute, the deadline and the evidence already on file, and be able to respond or refund without leaving the software. That is a payment product in the plain sense: a feature on top of the payment that keeps the customer on the platform's rails. On a split payment, decide and document who carries a lost dispute.