When Do Black Friday Chargebacks Arrive?

Black Friday chargebacks don't arrive on Black Friday. Holiday chargebacks peak in January. For orders placed over Black Friday weekend 2025, the typical dispute came 25 days after the order. Half took longer than that, so disputes on Black Friday orders are still arriving in January, at the same time as disputes on December orders.

These findings come from Holiday chargebacks peak in January, the Chargeflow Data Lab's new report. It draws on the two most recent peak seasons, 2024-25 and 2025-26, from a study of about three million disputes.

When do post-holiday chargebacks peak?

In both seasons we measured, January had the most disputes filed per day of the season, about 1.4 times as many as November. December and February also had more disputes filed per day than November. So dispute volume stays high for three months, with January the peak.

Every holiday chargeback runs on two clocks: the day the order was placed, and the day the dispute was filed. By the order clock, disputes cluster from Black Friday into early December. By the filing clock, the same disputes spread across December, January and February. Summer sellers see the same two clocks: a September chargeback problem started in July.

Whoever answers your disputes gets the work when disputes are filed. So the filing clock is the one to plan around.

How long after the order do chargebacks arrive?

It depends on the claim. A customer can dispute a charge they didn't make as soon as they see their statement. Before a “never arrived” claim, a parcel has to fail to show up. A product has to arrive and be opened before anyone can call it not as described.

For Black Friday weekend 2025 orders, the typical delays were:

• Unauthorized charges and canceled subscriptions: 10 days after the order
• Disputes a card issuer labels as fraud: 20 days
• “Never arrived” (item not received): 23 days, just before Christmas
• “Not as described”: 31 days

“Fraud” is the label a card issuer uses for a charge it treats as fraudulent. “Unauthorized” is a claim that the payment wasn't authorized, and some payment platforms use it for their fraud claims.

So the claims you answer change as the weeks pass: unauthorized charges first, then delivery and product complaints. Three quarters of the disputes on those orders came within 42 days. Customers can file later than that, up to the chargeback time limits their card network allows.

Which claims grow over Black Friday is covered in the companion report, One in three Black Friday chargebacks says “never arrived”.

Protect your revenue on both clocks

Holiday chargebacks put the revenue you earned over Black Friday at risk twice: when an order ships that shouldn't, and when a dispute lands in January and nobody answers it in time. Chargeflow covers both.

Before the order ships: Prevent 2.0. The disputes that peak in January start as orders shipped in November and December. Prevent 2.0, our new AI model, screens every order for fraud and abuse after checkout and blocks risky orders before fulfillment. It works after checkout, so it never gets in the way of conversion.

After the dispute lands: Chargeflow Automation. January is a hard month to staff for disputes, and a dispute nobody answers is a dispute you lose. Chargeflow Automation answers them for you. It builds each case backward from the win, starting from the evidence that wins that kind of claim, and files it before the deadline, whether the dispute lands in December, January or February. Chargeflow Network Intelligence refines case strategy using real dispute outcomes.

How to plan for the January chargeback peak

• Decide now who answers chargebacks: your team, your AI agents or both. The BFCM payments, fraud and disputes checklist puts an owner and a date on each task.
• Plan for the dispute peak, not the sales peak. Keep your dispute team or AI agents fully in place through January and February. That way, every dispute gets reviewed, not just the ones there's time for.
• Get your delivery records ready. Make sure whoever answers disputes can find the tracking numbers, carrier scans and delivery confirmations they need.
• Find out when your own disputes land. The report's planner takes your busiest order day and shows when its disputes would typically arrive.

Read the full report in the Data Lab.