Root Cause

• Refund policies of the payment processor: Certain transactions may not be eligible for refunds based on time elapsed or transaction type.

• Gateway restrictions: The payment gateway may have declined the refund request due to internal risk rules or account settings.

• Insufficient balance: The merchant account may not have sufficient available balance to process the refund.

• Bank-side limitations: The customer's bank declined to accept the refund, possibly due to account issues.

Troubleshooting and Solutions

• Inform the customer that their refund request was declined.

• Internally:

  • Review the transaction details in Chargebee and at the payment gateway.

  • Verify eligibility for a refund based on the gateway and bank rules.

• If applicable, resolve issues such as an insufficient merchant account balance.

• If you are using the Chargebee Payments gateway and encounter refund failures because the refund reserve has insufficient funds, you must top up the reserve before proceeding. Follow the steps in this help article to top up your refund reserve.

• Consult your payment processor's support team for detailed insights if the refund reason is not clear.

• Retry the refund after the root cause is resolved or suggest alternative resolutions (such as credits or manual refunds).