February Chargebacks: Why Disputes Spike Now

February is when the holiday glow fades… and the math gets loud.

You shipped hard in November and December. Sales looked great. Then the “after” shows up: returns, refunds, disputes, and retailer chargebacks that quietly claw back cash when everyone’s already sprinting into the new year.

And in 2026, the volume is simply too big to ignore. The National Retail Federation (NRF)

projects $849.9B in total retail returns in 2025, with 15.8% of annual sales coming back—and online returns even higher.

That return wave doesn’t just hit the retailer. It hits you.

What “chargeback season” really looks like for suppliers

Even if you don’t sell direct-to-consumer (DTC), you still feel the downstream effects:

• Short pays tied to returns, pricing, or promo interpretation

• Marketplace fee math and item-level adjustments

• “Where’s my refund?” disputes that turn into payment reversals

• Compliance penalties that surface weeks later (labeling, routing, appointment windows)

Different labels. Same outcome: money you thought was yours gets reclassified as “under review.”

Why February is the pressure point

A lot of the “why now” is just timing:

• Return windows mature (holiday + extended policies)

• Retail finance teams reconcile January statements

• Dispute deadlines collide with understaffed back offices

• Everyone discovers the same thing at once: the documentation isn’t where it should be

If your team is already juggling accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR), this month can feel like playing defense with one glove.

The trend line isn’t your friend

Disputes and chargebacks have been trending upward, and the cost is rising with them, and chargeback costs are projected to climb materially through 2028.

Even if the “chargeback” label isn’t the one your retailer uses, the operating reality is the same: more exceptions, more offsets, more cash drag.

A fictional (but painfully realistic) February scenario

Fictional example (not a real company):A mid-sized supplier runs a big holiday promo.

January comes, returns climb, and the retailer’s customer service team accelerates refunds to keep satisfaction scores up. But the reconciliation logic mis-tags a chunk of returns against the supplier’s funding bucket. February remittance hits with a string of small deductions—$312 here, $487 there—each one “too small” to research… until the total becomes a five-figure surprise.

No fraud. No disaster. Just death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts.

The February Dispute Surge Playbook

Here’s the approach that works when volume spikes.

1) Separate “noise” from “patterns” (fast)

Build three buckets:

• High-frequency, low-dollar (pattern hunting)

• Low-frequency, high-dollar (immediate deep dive)

• Repeat offenders (root-cause + prevention)

Your goal in week one isn’t perfection. It’s triage.

2) Standardize a “research package.”

Every dispute you want to win needs the same backbone:

• Purchase order (PO) + invoice match

• Proof of delivery (POD) / appointment confirmation

• Promo agreement/price authorization

• Email trail (yes, boring—also effective)

• Photos where relevant (damage/condition claims)

If your team has to reinvent the package every time, you’ll lose on speed alone.

3) Put deadlines on a calendar, not in someone’s head

Create a simple dispute calendar with:

• Submission cutoffs

• Required fields/documents by claim type

• Escalation triggers (when to call, when to refile, when to walk away)

4) Track 2 metrics that actually matter

Skip the vanity dashboards. Track:

• Aging (how long claims sit before action)

• Repeat rate (same issue, same root cause, different invoice)

If you reduce the repeat rate, you reduce the entire workload.

February readiness checklist

Use this as your “are we ready?” gut check:

• One owner for dispute triage (even if not the resolver)

• A single location for proof documents (not 14 inboxes)

• Templates for common claim narratives

• A decision rule for “pursue vs. drop” by dollar threshold

• Weekly pattern review (30 minutes, same day/time)

• A short list of the top 5 deduction/chargeback reasons this month

• A prevention action for each top reason (not just recovery)

Where HRG fits 

When suppliers get relief, it’s usually because someone brings order to the chaos: clear claim packages, smart triage, and the discipline to fix root causes—not just fight fires.

That’s the lane HRG lives in: people + technology, so you’re not stuck with a tool that can sort data but can’t interpret the nuance of policy, documentation, and retailer logic.

If February is already loud for your team, a quick outside assessment of your top claim types and documentation gaps can be a low-effort way to stop the bleeding.