Chargebacks on a virtual card: when you get the money back and when you do not
A chargeback is the procedure by which the issuing bank returns money for a transaction at the cardholder's demand. On an ordinary bank card it works as insurance against a bad merchant. On a prepaid card from an intermediary it works differently, and the difference is expensive for those who did not know.
We collected what seven catalogue services say about refunds, disputes, deadlines and their own liability caps. The picture is uneven: from «you pursue the merchant yourself» to «45 $ per dispute regardless of outcome».
In short
- Wayment provides no chargeback at all: you pursue the dispute with the merchant yourself.
- Flowbit Finance charges 45 $ for every dispute — whether you win or lose.
- At Aifory Pro the claim window is just 7 calendar days from the transaction date.
- The service's liability cap is not the balance on the card but usually three months of fees or a fixed ceiling.
- A merchant refund and a chargeback are different things; the first works nearly everywhere, the second almost nowhere.
Three mechanisms people confuse
Merchant refund
The shop cancels the payment itself and returns the money to the card. The intermediary is not involved — it simply credits what arrives. This works for most, but not all: Wayment and Flowbit Finance are recorded in the catalogue as not supporting refunds, meaning money sent back by a merchant may never reach your balance.
Chargeback (forced dispute)
You approach the issuer, which raises a dispute in the payment network. This is what prepaid cards usually lack — because you are not the issuer's customer, you are the intermediary's.
A claim against the service itself
When the fault is not the merchant's but the intermediary's — money never credited, card blocked, wrong rate applied. Here the liability cap from the offer applies, and it is small.
What the services say
| Service | Refunds and disputes | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Wayment | no chargeback, refunds unsupported, merchant dispute is yours | refund fee 10 % |
| Flowbit Finance | refunds unsupported; disputes charged regardless of outcome | 45 $ per dispute |
| Wanttopay | refunds supported | 45 $ on the Easy plan |
| Aifory Pro | refunds supported; claim window 7 calendar days, payment agent may hold funds up to 50 days | 3 % |
| Plati po miru | refunds handled case by case, up to 10 business days | 10 % |
| Plati v puti | undisclosed | undisclosed |
| Zarub | undisclosed | undisclosed |
Flowbit Finance's combination deserves attention: refunds are unsupported and a dispute costs 45 $ irrespective of the result. On a 30 $ dispute the procedure costs more than the subject of the dispute.
Aifory Pro's seven days is the shortest window in the catalogue. For a subscription charge you notice at the end of the month, it may not be physically enough.
Liability cap: the maximum you can recover
This figure is worth learning before you put money on the card. It is the upper bound on what you receive even when the service's fault is fully established.
| Service | Ceiling |
|---|---|
| Aifory Pro | no more than 50 $ in aggregate; multiple claims do not raise it |
| Plati v puti | fees for 3 calendar months, but no more than 100 $ |
| Zarub | fees for 30 days, no more than 10 000 ₽, and only for intentional acts |
| Wayment | fees over the last 3 months |
| Flowbit Finance | the lesser of two: three months of fees, or the balance available at the time of the claim |
| Wanttopay | the amount actually paid to the service; indirect losses excluded |
| Plati po miru | undisclosed |
Note Flowbit's construction: «the lesser of two». If the balance at the moment of the claim is zero — and it will be zero, since the money is gone — the cap equals three months of fees. And Zarub's «intentional acts» clause excludes ordinary technical failure.
What to do when a payment goes wrong
- Go to the merchant first. It is the one channel that works at all seven. A cancellation on the shop's side returns the money without the intermediary.
- Record the transaction date. At Aifory Pro the seven days run from it, not from when you noticed.
- Check whether your service supports refunds at all. If not, money the merchant sends back may never arrive.
- Do the arithmetic of disputing. At 45 $ or 10 % of the amount, disputing a small payment makes no sense.
- Do not keep spare money on the card. That is the only measure that works regardless of the service's terms.
Separately: frozen funds
Plati po miru describes how an uncompleted transaction behaves: the funds are frozen and the balance is normally restored within 10 calendar days. At Aifory Pro the payment agent may hold funds for up to 50 days. This is neither a block nor a dispute — it is the ordinary course of a transaction, and the money is unavailable for that period.
The practical takeaway: do not plan anything urgent around money on such a card, and do not count on an instant return of a «cancelled» payment.
Where to check the terms for a specific card
In the catalogue each service opens a card with all the fields: refunds, dispute fee, liability cap, fate of the balance, claim window. It also shows what exactly is undisclosed — which is an answer too.
Data was collected on 30 July – 1 August 2026 from vendor statements and public documents. We run no test disputes and do not present our findings as battle-tested.