Refunds, double charges, and chargebacks



This article explains:


How refunds work

  • If you would like a refund on any item or service purchased with a Pleo card, please contact the merchant. All refunds are subject to the merchant's refund policy. For example, if you purchase a non-refundable plane ticket and later want a refund, we won't be able to help. If you're entitled to a refund but the merchant isn't cooperating, please see the "chargebacks" section.

  • Even if the Pleo card used to make the original purchase is no longer active, the merchant can still refund to the card, and the funds will go to your Pleo Wallet.

  • What if the original expense has already been exported to your accounting system? Whenever a refund comes in, it will show up as positive (+) on the Expenses page. You can attach a credit note (something you get from the merchant) to the refund in Pleo. It's possible to export refunds to your accounting system where it can be balanced out with the original expense. If a credit note is not available, please mark the refund as "missing a receipt".

  • If the original purchase was in a different currency than your Pleo Wallet, then the refunded amount might be slightly lower or higher depending on the exchange rate. Pleo applies the same exchange rates as Mastercard.

  • If a merchant does not claim the funds within 11 days of the purchase, Pleo will automatically make the money available again. That said, the merchant still has the right to claim the funds at a later time. This could happen if, say, the merchant was waiting to claim the funds until they shipped an item (and it took them longer than 11 days to do so).

  • What if the merchant claims that they issued a refund but you don’t see it in Pleo? Please ask the merchant for a proof of refund. This document should include the last 4 digits of the Pleo card that was refunded, as well as an authorisation code. Please send this to our support team and we'll look further into it for you.


What to do if you notice a double charge

In the majority of cases, seeing the same payment twice doesn't mean that the merchant has charged you twice. Instead, it's likely for one of these two reasons:

  • Scenario 1: The money was never claimed by the merchant.

Let’s say you buy something with your Pleo card, but the merchant is out of stock and won’t be able to deliver the goods. So they cancel the order and issue an authorisation reversal. An authorisation reversal is like a message that the merchant sends to Pleo, saying "Heads up, we're just checking that this account is still active before we refund this amount."

The problem in this scenario comes up if a receipt has been added to the original purchase. What should happen is for both the original charge and authorisation reversal to disappear from view. Pleo lets them cancel each other out as, technically, no money ever exchanged hands. However, Pleo considers the receipt you attached to be your property, and so we don't want to delete the original charge. For this reason, both the original charge and the authorisation reversal are still visible (making it look like you've been charged twice).

The solution: 

  1. Download the receipt from Pleo (in case you need it in the future).

  2. Delete the receipt from the original authorisation.

  3. The original charge plus reversal should both disappear within 24 hours.

  • Scenario 2: The money was claimed by the merchant, but they've issued a refund.

In the second scenario, money did exchange hands. The merchant claimed the funds, but they've since issued a refund. The authorisation reversal step (explained above) is also applied in this scenario. So there's an amount of time when your Expenses page will show: the original charge, the authorisation reversal, and the refunded amount. Like in this example:



The solution: 

  • If a receipt has accidentally been added to the authorisation reversal instead of the original charge, please:

    1. Download the receipt from Pleo.

    2. Delete the receipt from the authorisation reversal.

    3. Add the receipt to the original charge/authorisation instead.

  • If there's no receipt attached to the authorisation reversal, it will automatically disappear within 11 days. The original charge and the refund will still be visible.


Chargebacks

Sometimes a merchant may refuse to issue a refund where you are entitled to one. Such cases include using your Pleo card to pay for goods or services that were never received, incomplete, or incorrect. In these cases, Pleo can assist you with what's called a "chargeback". Please note that we can raise a chargeback with Mastercard if you contact us within 90 days of the initial purchase. If it's been over 90 days, we'll still try to help, but cannot guarantee that a case can be opened.



Before Pleo can help with a chargeback:

  1. We need written proof (in PDF format) that the merchant has either refused to issue a refund or they've not responded. Please send the proof of communication, together with the transaction details (purchase date, amount, name of the merchant) and a description of the case, to our support team.

  2. Either the cardholder or a Pleo account admin needs to submit a chargeback form (our support team will share it with you). The form needs to be submitted in English, as that's a Mastercard requirement, and they are primarily in charge of processing the case.

What happens once a chargeback is initiated:

  1. Pleo contacts Mastercard, issuing them with a Customer Dispute Form.

  2. Mastercard send the dispute to the merchant.

  3. The merchant has 45 days to respond. The merchant can either agree to return the money or dispute our claim with stronger proof.

  4. If the merchant is able to prove they are in the right, then the cardholder loses the right to the money. In this situation, Pleo also applies a 20 GBP fee as a processing fee.

  5. If the merchant does not dispute the case, or if they don't have a strong case, then you will be refunded.





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