BNPL Dispute Resolution: How to Fight Back Against Wrongful Charges
When you use BNPL dispute resolution, the process consumers follow to challenge incorrect or unauthorized Buy Now, Pay Later charges. Also known as BNPL chargeback, it’s your legal right to fix errors—like being charged twice, getting billed for a returned item, or being hit with fees you never agreed to. More than 1 in 5 BNPL users have faced a billing issue, and most don’t know where to start. It’s not magic. It’s not complicated. It’s just paperwork, timing, and knowing who to talk to.
BNPL chargebacks, the formal request to reverse a payment through your bank or card issuer, are your strongest tool when the BNPL company won’t fix it. But you can’t just call and ask. You need a paper trail: order confirmations, return receipts, screenshots of canceled subscriptions, and emails showing you asked for help. Companies like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay are required under federal rules to respond within 30 days. If they don’t, you escalate to your credit card provider—and they have to investigate. This isn’t a loophole. It’s the law.
Then there’s BNPL customer rights, the protections you have under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state laws. You can’t be charged late fees if you didn’t get a clear payment reminder. You can’t be reported to credit bureaus for a dispute you filed in good faith. And you can’t be forced into arbitration without a clear, separate agreement. Most users don’t know this. They just pay up. But you’re not most users. You’re reading this because you want to do better.
What you’ll find below are real stories and real guides from people who’ve been there. How one woman got $800 back after a retailer never shipped her order. How a college student fought a $150 fee for a canceled subscription he never used. How someone caught a duplicate charge from a BNPL app that kept retrying payments after the bank declined them. These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re fixes that worked—and they can work for you too.
You don’t need a lawyer. You don’t need to be rich. You just need to know what to say, when to say it, and where to send it. The system isn’t perfect—but it’s designed to be used. And you’re about to learn how to use it right.