SEPA Debit dispute date broken and messaging unclear

[martynmjones]

Describe the bug

If a customer opens a dispute for a SEPA Debit transaction within 8 weeks of placing the order then the dispute is immediately closed in their favor as expected but the dispute inside WooCommerce Payments reads Respond by: Jan 1, 1970 - 1:00AM

To Reproduce

1. Enable SEPA Debit as a payment method
2. Place order using a test account that will trigger a dispute i.e GB28WEST12345698765434
3. Go to Payments > Disputes and view dispute date details

Screenshots

Expected behavior

No date should be displayed. Additionally, the messaging states that evidence can be submitted whereas it's not possible for this dispute. Clearer messaging here that indicates why the dispute was immediately closed would avoid confusion for our users.

[theabhig]

Also reported in 5468258-zen

[neilmccreadie]

Also in 38089036-hc

[theabhig]

5825565-zen

[paulostp]

5829233-zen

[IliaDi]

5863244-zen

[sverleis]

5866103-zen

[jessy-p]

This issue impacts Deposits, Disputes, Capital Loans, so assigning to Helix (based on team responsibilities Pc2DNy-3z-p2) @haszari. Assigning as part of Gamma Triage process PcreKM-yM-p2.

Tagging as part of re-evaluating older issues in the backlog, please have a look and close if no longer relevant.

[haszari]

@pierorocca I see you've added this issye to Buyer Experiences Bug Project Board - https://github.com/orgs/Automattic/projects/880 - will a buyer experience team work on this?

If a customer opens a dispute for a SEPA Debit transaction within 8 weeks of placing the order then the dispute is immediately closed in their favor as expected but the dispute inside WooCommerce Payments reads Respond by: Jan 1, 1970 - 1:00AM

Looks like we're either inconsistent data from the Stripe API or we're somehow mishandling these disputes.

Next steps

• Confirm if this is still happening:
  • Unclear from this issue as the tickets stop ~12 months ago, maybe was a temporary glitch.
  • Testing / exploration to reproduce. I'm unfamiliar with testing SEPA payments (and disputes), hopefully there's a way to reproduce in test mode.

If it's still happening then we should fix.

[pierorocca]

Hey @haszari thanks for asking. The new project board is keying off of component labels to auto-identify issues most likely in our area. This issue has the component: upe label hence why it was added automatically. Would component: disputes be a more accurate label here?

[haszari]

This issue has the component: upe label hence why it was added automatically. Would component: disputes be a more accurate label here?

Looks like the issue affects a dispute flow primarily. I'm not clear on the relevance of UPE for SEPA payments, presumably UPE allows SEPA.

[haszari]

This issue impacts Deposits, Disputes, Capital Loans, so assigning to Helix (based on team responsibilities Pc2DNy-3z-p2) @haszari. Assigning as part of Gamma Triage process

Side note / question @jessy-p – does the gamma triage process include adding component tag? I'm surprised this wasn't tagged with disputes.

The component tags are important for our workflow, this is how we pull issues into our board and prioritisation process (the comments are just a reminder / nudge).

Added disputes label :)

[pierorocca]

Thanks @haszari. UPE is Stripe's UI element so it would be best applied to Checkout UI scenarios. I've advocated for a label cleanup and UPE is one that could be retired or collapsed into a more generic label like "Checkout" or "Checkout UI".

[haszari]

I see there are a few linked tickets (~5) so raising priority to medium.

There are some questions here which would be good next steps:

• Find out how to reproduce this in test mode. Without that we will have a hard time fixing.
• Find out how common this scenario is and get a better understanding of impact – could be priority: high.
• Find out more about this dispute flow and what it means. It's clearly different from a normal dispute flow, what's the normal flow for these SEPA disputes? What does Stripe recommend?

[dmallory42]

I came across an issue while on janitorial that I think may be related to this, but is presenting in a slightly different way.

In the issue (p1707422928616779-slack-C7U3Y3VMY) the merchant processed a SEPA payment which was later disputed/refunded by the buyer, but the transaction timeline on the merchant dashboard showed the failed payment event as a result of the dispute happening before the successful payment event (even though it actually happened afterwards). This confused the merchant making them think the payment was successful.

My hunch here is that it's the same reason - because of how SEPA works, the dispute is closed automatically and thus no time should be recorded for it, however as a result we are defaulting towards showing it at the beginning of the timeline, when it should actually display later.

Let me know if I should open up a new issue - I wanted to mention it here though because I do think it's likely to be related.

Screenshot with some info redacted:

[haszari]

Thanks for the screenshot & context @dmallory42 – very helpful, since we can't easily reproduce this in test mode.

[souravdebnath1986]

Putting priority as high. SEPA though has low usage has a high dispute activity rate of > 6%. Solving this could bring down the dispute rate.

[souravdebnath1986]

As a follow up from previous comment changed priority from high to low. Though the dispute activity rate is high, SEPA as a payment method is not supported. @pierorocca our support documents show SEPA as an alternative payment method. Should this be updated and SEPA removed if it's no longer a supported payment method ? Also we still see < 100 active merchants per month offering SEPA. Should SEPA be disabled for these merchants as well ?

[pierorocca]

Thanks @souravdebnath1986. I've asked @csmcneill to remove the reference which links to a now removed page. I don't have the full history on the merchants that participated in the Beta and if they're being grandfathered or if the payment method is being sunset. Reaching out to a few folks.

[pierorocca]

@souravdebnath1986 it appears that only net new merchants cannot access SEPA and that some merchants are grandfathered in. p6q7sZ-bEI-p2#comment-34762 May be worth revisiting this to understand if the cost/benefit makes sense.

[csmcneill]

I've asked @csmcneill to remove the reference which links to a now removed page.

Done!

[haszari]

As a follow up from previous comment changed priority from high to low. Though the dispute activity rate is high, SEPA as a payment method is not supported.

Removing from sprint next as this is lower priority than we initially thought.

[fetenlakhal]

8422167-ZD

[francoishvz]

8550548-zd-a8c