Disputes in WAITING_FOR_SELLER_RESPONSE, clock is ticking on evidence (default 10 days).
At a glance
Live count of PayPal disputes (T19xx) currently waiting for the merchant’s evidence response. The clock is ticking, PayPal’s default response window is 10 days for most case types. Miss it and the dispute auto-closes against you. Any non-zero value triggers an alert because every open case has a deadline.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your PayPal data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US-based home-goods brand. The PayPal dispute queue at 09:00 UTC on 12 Apr 26:- PP-CASE-7732 is overdue. The 7-day Visa chargeback response window expired 2 days ago. PayPal will auto-close this case against the merchant on the next batch run; the $199.99 will be debited from the next payout AND the case counts toward the 1.0% chargeback monitoring threshold. This is the single most urgent item on the queue, evidence cannot recover it now (the deadline has passed) but the merchant should still upload a chargeback rebuttal in case PayPal allows a late submission.
- PP-CASE-7755 has 1 day left. Unauthorised cases require the strongest evidence pack (signed delivery confirmation, IP / device fingerprint, billing-shipping match). The merchant has uploaded; this should resolve in their favour because Seller Protection generally covers Unauthorised when shipped to the verified address.
- PP-CASE-7740 was customer-resolved with a refund. It still appears in this card until PayPal’s status syncs catch up (usually within 24 hours of the refund). On the next refresh it should drop off.
- The merchant has 7 open disputes totalling ~$936 (PP Dispute Value shows the dollar view). At 4,820 successful payments in the rolling 30-day window, the active dispute density is 0.145%, well below the 0.9% alert; but if any of these become “lost” they count toward PP Dispute Rate which has the regulatory cap.
- Reason mix: 2 INR, 2 SNAD, 1 Unauthorised, 1 Inquiry, 1 bank chargeback. That’s a balanced distribution suggesting no single root cause is dominant. A pattern of mostly INR would point to fulfilment issues; mostly SNAD to listing accuracy; mostly Unauthorised to a fraud attack. None of these dominate here, so the operator works the cases individually rather than chasing a systemic fix.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in PayPal Business:- PayPal Resolution Center, the live case queue with response-deadline countdowns. This is the canonical view, the merchant takes action here.
- PayPal Business → Activity → Disputes filter for an aggregated transactional view.
- PayPal Seller Performance dashboard for context on whether your open-disputes count is contributing to seller-performance flags.
- “Cases” tile on the home dashboard groups all dispute states (open + closed) into one number.
- “Refunds and reversals” feed includes T11 refunds, which are not disputes.
- “All transactions” filtered by status “Disputed” usually shows historical disputes regardless of current state.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Quick rule for support tickets: if a merchant says “PayPal Resolution Center shows 8 cases, your card shows 7” that’s almost always sync timing, the most recently filed case is in PayPal but not yet in our cache. Wait one refresh.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
What happens if I miss a dispute deadline? The case auto-closes against you. PayPal debits the disputed amount from your next payout, charges a chargeback fee (typically $20), and the case counts toward your dispute rate (which has the 1.0% Visa/Mastercard regulatory cap). Missing deadlines is the single most-avoidable cause of merchant losses in the dispute flow. Can I just refund the dispute to make it go away? Yes. A refund issued through PayPal usually closes the case in your favour without needing evidence (PayPal interprets it as resolution-by-mutual-agreement). The refund counts as a refund, not a lost dispute, so it doesn’t hit your dispute rate. The trade-off: refund cost vs evidence-and-defend cost. For low-value cases (< $50), refunding is almost always cheaper than the operational time of building an evidence pack. What evidence wins PayPal disputes? Depends on case type:- INR: tracking number with carrier delivery confirmation. Tracking that shows “in transit” but never delivered usually loses; tracking that shows “delivered” usually wins.
- SNAD: original product listing screenshot, shipping photos showing the item packed correctly, return policy clearly visible to buyer at purchase.
- Unauthorised: signed delivery confirmation (especially for high-value), IP address match between order and historical buyer logins, billing-shipping address match.
- Inquiry (informal): just respond promptly with a polite explanation. 60% close without escalating.
IN [P, WAITING_FOR_SELLER_RESPONSE] filter excludes briefly. Wait one refresh; if the gap persists, PayPal Resolution Center is authoritative.
Are inquiries counted here?
Yes if they’re awaiting your response. Inquiries are early-stage cases where the buyer asked PayPal to mediate without filing a formal dispute. They have shorter response windows (typically 7 days) but most close in your favour after a polite reply explaining the situation.
How do I respond to bank chargebacks routed through PayPal?
Differently from buyer-protection cases. Bank chargebacks (the 2 in our worked example) are filed by the issuing bank under Visa or Mastercard rules; PayPal forwards them to you with a network-specific evidence template. Win rates are lower (typically 25-35%) because card networks have stricter evidence requirements than PayPal’s own buyer-protection programme. Pre-emptive refund usually doesn’t close them, the bank has already moved the money.
The card shows 0, am I done forever?
No, just for now. New disputes can be filed up to 180 days after the original payment. Watch PP Dispute Rate Trend for the trailing trend; if disputes are filed weeks or months after orders, you’ll see a long tail.
Why is the alert at >0 not a higher threshold?
Because every open case has a deadline. Even one open case with 8 days left can become a lost case at day 11 if forgotten. The card is binary-by-design, when it’s non-zero, action is required. For trend-monitoring use PP Dispute Rate instead.
Can I bulk-respond to multiple disputes at once?
PayPal Resolution Center supports per-case responses only. There’s no bulk-evidence-upload UI in PayPal Business. Some third-party dispute-management apps integrate with PayPal’s API to streamline the flow; for high-dispute-volume merchants those tools pay back quickly.
My multi-currency PayPal account, does this card work?
Yes, count-based metrics are currency-neutral. A multi-currency account gets a single open-disputes count across all currencies. The dollar value (in PP Dispute Value) sums across currencies without FX, so multi-currency stores should also use the per-currency breakdown for triage.