A dispute may be continued after the chargeback cycles have completed by using the pre-arbitration, when applicable, and the arbitration case filing process. An issuer may submit a pre-arbitration case when the original chargeback was valid and the second presentment failed to remedy the dispute. When a issuer is submitting a pre-arbitration for a consumer dispute, fraud dispute, or processing errors dispute; a new dispute resolution form will be generated and sent to Mastercard. The user will also be able to attach new documentation to support the pre-arbitration. An issuer may accept responsibility for a pre-arbitration or arbitration case at any time, before a response or ruling is received, by executing the withdraw action.
A pre-arbitration case filing is required prior to escalation to an arbitration case for all disputes with the exception of the following chargebacks.
- ATM Disputes
- Authorization-related Chargebacks (4808)
- Chip Liability Shift
- Chip Liability Shift Lost Stolen NRI
Mastercard does not provide additional time for filing arbitration if the issuer chooses to pursue pre-arbitration when it is optional. The system will generate a response due date based on the deadline for filing arbitration to allow enough time to escalate to arbitration, if needed. This value can be overridden by the user, but cannot be greater than the date calculated by the system.
Note: This exception does not apply when the reason code is changed.
When pre-arbitration is pursued in the Mastercard Representment flow, this flow is executed. The system will execute the Case Filing flow and pass in the necessary details to initiate the pre-arbitration case with Mastercard. Once the case filing activities are complete, a "Pre-Arbitration Submitted" recovery action is recorded in the Recovery Action History. Then the Pre-Arbitration Response flow is executed while a response is awaited.