A cardholder has 210 days to dispute an eftpos payment and 120 days on Visa or Mastercard, you get 30 to 45 days to answer, and a lost case costs the sale plus a A$25 fee on NAB's published schedule.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, which is how this comes up: nearly every dispute a venue can actually control started as a card number read out over the phone. This page sets out the published windows, what a chargeback really costs on a hospitality margin, why phone payments carry the liability, and the four fixes in order of what they cost you.
A chargeback is not a refund. A refund is you deciding to give money back. A chargeback is the cardholder's bank taking it back, and the first you hear of it is usually a notice from your own bank with a deadline on it. Skai Solutions pulled the published scheme windows for this page because the deadline is the part that decides the outcome, and almost nobody reads it until the second one.
Three clocks run, and they run at different speeds depending on which card was tapped.
| Scheme | Cardholder has | You have to respond |
|---|---|---|
| eftpos | 210 days from the transaction | 30 days |
| Mastercard | 120 days, varies by reason code | 45 days |
| Visa | 120 days, varies by reason code | 30 days |
Those windows are published by NAB's merchant support centre, read 17 October 2026, and they are scheme rules rather than one bank's policy, so your acquirer will be working to the same numbers. Miss your response window and the case resolves in the cardholder's favour automatically. NAB also debits the amount 10 calendar days after notification for a fraud chargeback and 24 days for a non-fraud one, which means the money can leave your settlement account before you have finished arguing about it.
The other published number worth knowing before you decide whether to fight: the chargeback fee. On NAB's schedule that is A$25, debited when you are found liable, and generally not reversible. In New Zealand the fee is set by your acquirer rather than by a public schedule, so the number to find is in your own merchant agreement, not on this page.
Add the three parts rather than looking at the bill amount alone.
Worked through on a plausible venue, and labelled as Skai Solutions' own arithmetic so you can swap in your numbers: a A$320 table disputed, a A$25 fee, and an hour of a manager's time. Against a 10 percent net margin that single reversal needs about A$3,450 of replacement trade to get back to where you started. That is the real reason chargebacks matter at a small venue. The amount is survivable. The margin it has to be recovered at is not.
For the bigger picture of what card acceptance costs you before any dispute, our page on restaurant merchant fees has the rates, and the card surcharge rules page covers what you may and may not pass on.
Hospitality has a narrow set of causes and they are not the ones most merchant guides lead with.
The card was not present. This is the big one and it is worth being precise about. A tap at the terminal is card present: the cardholder was there, the chip authenticated, and a fraud chargeback on it is hard to win against you. A card number read out over the phone for a catering order, a deposit for a function, or a no show fee taken later from a stored card is card not present, and the liability shifts to you. That distinction is the whole game.
The scale of it. AusPayNet's fraud statistics for the 2024-25 financial year put total fraud on Australian issued cards at A$853,981,264, of which A$745,952,214, about 87.3 percent, was card not present. The overall fraud rate was 71.8 cents per A$1,000 spent. AusPayNet does not break that down by industry, so nobody can honestly tell you a restaurant chargeback rate, including us. What the split does tell you is where your exposure sits: not at the terminal, but on the phone.
Friendly fraud. The cardholder recognises the charge and disputes it anyway: the meal was not as described, the booking was cancelled, a partner did not recognise the venue name on the statement. A trading name on the statement that does not match the sign above the door causes more of these than any other single thing.
Duplicate processing. A terminal that times out and gets run again. Common during a rush, and the easiest of all to lose, because the cardholder is right.
In this order, because the cheap ones are also the ones that work.
One. Fix the statement name. Free, takes one call to your acquirer, and it removes the single most common trigger. If your venue trades as one name and bills as a holding company, a cardholder scanning a statement will not recognise it.
Two. Keep the evidence you already generate. The signed or tapped docket, the booking record with the name and phone number, the deposit terms the customer agreed to, and the message trail. Most lost representments are lost for want of paper, not for want of a case. If you take deposits, your no show fee terms need to be something you can produce later, which means in writing and agreed before the booking, not read out at the door.
Three. Stop keying card numbers by hand. Every manually keyed phone payment is a card not present transaction you will carry the liability on. A payment link sent to the customer's phone moves the authentication to them. This is the single biggest structural reduction available to a venue that takes phone orders.
Four. Respond inside the window, every time, even on small ones. Thirty days is less than it sounds when the notice arrives while you are short staffed. A diarised response day costs nothing.
If none of those work and the chargeback still lands, accept it and move on. Representment has a cost in time and the fee is often charged either way. Fighting a A$60 brunch on principle is the expensive choice.
The scheme rules are the same, because Visa and Mastercard operate the same dispute process on both sides of the Tasman. What differs is the domestic debit rail and the cost base around it. The Commerce Commission reported on 17 July 2025 that it costs New Zealand businesses around NZ$1 billion a year to accept Visa and Mastercard payments, and that its interchange decision cuts about NZ$90 million a year from that. Chargeback fees sit outside that regulated interchange, so they are a matter between you and your acquirer, and they are negotiable in a way interchange is not.
The practical New Zealand difference for a venue: more of your volume runs on domestic EFTPOS, which is card present by definition, so your disputed share tends to concentrate even harder in the phone and deposit payments. The same conclusion, more sharply.
Every chargeback risk above that you can actually control traces back to a payment taken over the phone or a booking commitment that nobody wrote down. Skai Solutions answers the phone for restaurants, cafes and takeaways in Australia and New Zealand, takes the booking or the order, captures the name, number and what was agreed, and puts it where your team will see it. Setup takes about five days. The record it leaves is the thing you need six weeks later when a notice arrives with a deadline on it.
To be straight about the limits: an answering service does not stop a chargeback and does not process the payment. If your disputes are coming from online orders or from a booking platform, this is not your fix, and a payment link in your existing ordering flow will do more. What it does solve is the venue that takes card numbers by ear during a rush and writes the booking on a docket that is in the bin by Tuesday.
The wider operating picture, if you are here because the card side of the business is costing more than you expected, is on our pages for restaurant overhead costs and restaurant profit margins.
What are the eftpos chargeback rules?
A cardholder has 210 days from the transaction date to dispute an eftpos payment, against 120 days for Visa and Mastercard, and the merchant then has 30 days to respond on eftpos and Visa and 45 days on Mastercard. Those windows are published by NAB's merchant support centre and are scheme rules rather than one bank's policy. Miss your response window and the case resolves in the cardholder's favour automatically.
How much does a chargeback cost a merchant in Australia?
The reversed transaction plus a chargeback fee. On NAB's published schedule that fee is A$25, debited from your settlement account when you are found liable, and generally not reversible. Add the staff time to find the docket and the booking record. At a 10 percent net margin a A$320 disputed table plus the fee needs roughly A$3,450 of replacement trade to recover, which is Skai Solutions' own arithmetic on stated inputs.
Can a customer charge back a meal they ate?
Yes, and it happens. It is usually called friendly fraud: the cardholder recognises the charge but disputes it on the basis that the meal was not as described, the booking was cancelled, or more often that nobody at home recognised the trading name on the statement. A card present tap is hard to reverse on a fraud reason code, so these arrive as consumer dispute codes instead, where your evidence decides it.
Why are phone orders riskier than payments at the terminal?
Because a card number read out over the phone is a card not present transaction, and the liability for it sits with the merchant rather than the issuer. AusPayNet put card not present fraud at A$745,952,214 in the 2024-25 financial year, about 87.3 percent of all fraud on Australian issued cards. A tap at the terminal authenticates the chip and the cardholder in the room; a keyed number authenticates neither.
How do I stop chargebacks at my restaurant?
Four things, cheapest first. Make the name on the customer's statement match the name on your door. Keep the docket, the booking record and the written deposit terms. Stop keying card numbers by hand and send a payment link instead, which moves authentication to the customer. Then diarise a response day so you never miss the 30 or 45 day window.
Are chargeback rules different in New Zealand?
The Visa and Mastercard dispute windows are the same, because those are global scheme rules. What differs is the cost base and the mix. The Commerce Commission reported in July 2025 that accepting Visa and Mastercard costs New Zealand businesses around NZ$1 billion a year, and its interchange decision takes about NZ$90 million off that. Chargeback fees sit outside regulated interchange, so yours is set in your merchant agreement.
Should I fight every chargeback?
No. Representment costs time, and on many schedules the fee is charged whether you win or lose. Fight the ones where you hold clear evidence, where the amount is material, or where the same customer is repeating. Accept the small ones and spend the hour on the statement name and the payment link instead, because those reduce the next ten.