Disputes are decided entirely by the entity that issued the cardholder's card. In some cases, this is the card network itself (as with American Express), while in others, it's an issuing bank (as with Mastercard or Visa).
The card network (such as Visa, Mastercard or American Express) defines the dispute process – or the "rules of the road" – for how disputes work. The issuer decides whether a given dispute is won or lost. In some cases (as with American Express), these are the same entity.
Your platform partners with Stripe to facilitate your participation in the dispute process by helping you select the best possible evidence for the dispute reason and transmitting your evidence to the card network, but Stripe does not make any decision about your dispute.
No. The issuer's decision is final and cannot be appealed or challenged. Some card networks feature a dispute lifecycle phase called "arbitration" in which a loss can be appealed (for a substantial card network fee), but this is not supported at present.
It may still be possible to have your customer withdraw the dispute, even after the dispute has been closed. You can read more about withdrawn disputes here:
The best strategy with disputes is to focus on prevention:
But once you have received a dispute, the best approach is to respond with strong evidence:
Whether you win or lose a dispute makes no difference. It is the dispute itself that is counted by the card networks in your dispute metrics. The outcome of the dispute doesn't affect that.
See: When a customer disputes a payment, when will they get the funds back?
You can find a high-level overview in our documentation: