Case Report Specification

The Case Report is designed for merchants (you) that process large payment volumes best handled through programmatic interfaces.

This report provides you with a regular view into the changes within your dispute and claim activity that might affect your daily support operations, your financial accounting, and your transactional history. It provides you with enough basic information about a PayPal dispute so that you can take the appropriate business actions to resolve the customer concern.

PayPal assumes that you have some experience with processing customer claims and the Case Report will provide data to be used within an existing complaint/dispute/claim processing flow. PayPal disputes come in different flavors, and while the general responses that you might make do not change (for example, providing proof of shipment for "non delivery claims"), you need to be aware of the timing differences of each PayPal dispute type.

The Case Report will not provide you with information about specific timing. If you wish to better understand the timing and response timelines related to each PayPal dispute type, visit the PayPal Resolution Center for more information.

Know before you begin

To use the Case Report, you'll need to create an SFTP user account.

The Case Report (formerly known as Downloadable Dispute Report - DDR) provides you with a regular operational report of all claims made against your PayPal account. This report is intended to provide you with a view of what claims have been made against you.

Because claims constantly change based on how you, and in some cases the consumer, react to the case, this report provides a view of changes to claim status in the past reporting period (typically 24 hours). It also provides claims for the last two years for all open cases. Additionally, the report provides information about newly created dispute cases, as well as changes in the status of those cases that have already been opened and are being processed.

The Case Report resembles the Case Report available to all PayPal users via the Resolution Center within the PayPal site, the Case Report is different in the following ways:

• The Case Report reports all claims that have changed state in the past reporting period (typically 24 hours) and also reports claims for the last two years whose status is still open (all open cases). You must do any filtering or sorting of this data.
• The Case Report contains the Invoice ID field, which can be used to track dispute cases based on your own internal transactional identifiers.

Terminology

The following terms are useful in understanding the report:

• Bank Return: These are received via the ACH (bank) networks for those cases where the consumer used a bank to fund the PayPal payment. While uncommon for US consumer transactions, these are not uncommon for worldwide consumers because credit card penetration is lower than in the US. The amount of the disputed transaction is often held in an unavailable balance until the ACH return is resolved. Once the ACH return is resolved, the amount being held is released. If the merchant was found to be at fault for the ACH return, a separate debit adjustment occurs.
• Chargeback: These are received directly by PayPal and represent cases where the consumer feels that PayPal will better resolve the complaint than their funding source, or the PayPal payment was funded directly from the consumer’s PayPal balance.The amount of the chargeback is often held in an unavailable balance until the chargeback is resolved. Once the chargeback is resolved, the amount being held is released. If the merchant was found to be at fault for the chargeback, a separate debit adjustment occurs.
• Claim: A claim is filed by a consumer against a merchant when the consumer is seeking a reversal of a transaction with a merchant. A consumer can file a claim without having first filed a dispute. All unresolved disputes automatically become claims. The amount of the chargeback is often held in an unavailable balance until the dispute is resolved. Once the dispute is resolved, the amount being held is released. If the merchant was found to be at fault for the dispute, a separate debit adjustment occurs.
• Dispute: A dispute is filed against by a consumer against a merchant when the consumer wants to work with the merchant to resolve an issue with a payment. There is no money movement for a dispute. Merchants are encouraged to reply to disputes to prevent a consumer claim against a transaction.
• Reversal/Temporary Hold: PayPal will sometimes pull specific transaction(s) based on the appearance of fraudulent activity, or actual fraud. Because this is a PayPal initiated investigation, the merchant needs to resolve with PayPal and not with the counter party. The amount of the questionable transaction is often held in an unavailable balance until the investigation is complete. Once the investigation is complete, the amount being held is released. If the merchant was found to be at fault for the questionable transaction, a separate debit adjustment occurs.
• Unauthorized Claim: These are received directly by PayPal incases where either PayPal or the consumer has identified possible fraudulent use of their PayPal account.The amount of the disputed transaction is often held in an unavailable balance until the investigation is complete. Once the investigation is complete, the amount being held is released. If the merchant was found to be at fault for the dispute, a separate debit adjustment occurs.

Report types

The Case Report is not designed to supply you with a complete view of all claims. The following table describes which reports will best inform specific needs within your business.

Distribution and access

The Case Report is available on PayPal's website and via the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server (sftp), which requires a separate user account for access to the Case Report. A user account that is enabled for the Case Report is also enabled to create user accounts for the Secure Drop-Box. To ensure data security, Case Report users must generate their own user accounts for the Secure Drop-Box. The following steps describe how to set up and access the Case Report using the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server:

1. Create a Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server user account. Log in to PayPal (www.paypal.com) and create a Secure PayPal Reporting FTP Server username and password. Passwords for accessing the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server cannot be reset by PayPal. To obtain a new password, you must create a new Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server user account.

2. Grant access to third-party users. You must explicitly grant access to third-parties by contacting their PayPal Account Manager to supply the third-parties’ PayPal login username and the type of permission: reporting access (read). The third-party is then notified by email that access to the business partner’s Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server has been granted.

3. Access the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server programmatically using an FTP client. The hostname of the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server is reports.paypal.com. A user account on the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server has this directory structure: /ppreports/outgoing.

Schedule

The Case Report is generated and delivered by PayPal on a regular (24 hour) basis. With the initial release of the Case Report, the Case Report is generated and distributed by 9AM daily in the leading timezone of the reporting window.

Data format

You can receive the Case Report in either comma separated value (csv) or tab delimited values format. Contact your PayPal Account Manager to set the data format for this report.

Character encoding: UTF-8

The report’s character encoding is UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format).

Report filename

The file naming convention depinds on whether or not you're using Multiple Account Management.

Single account report

The filename of the Case Report for a single account follows this naming convention: DDR-yyyymmdd.sequenceNumber.version.format:

Multiple account report

When using Multiple Account Management, the filename of the report follows this naming convention: DDR-yyyymmdd.reportingWindow.sequenceNumber.totalFiles.version.format

Data retention

The Case Report is available on PayPal's website and via the Secure FTP PayPal Reporting Server for 45 days after the date of its delivery.

New or revised versions

In the future, PayPal will support multiple versions of the Case Report. PayPal will notify you regarding the creation of any new version as well as any deprecation of older versions of the report.

If you wish to take advantage of a new version, you can receive two versions of the same report concurrently in order to test and integrate the new version. You can also receive non- consecutive versions of the same report concurrently in order to test and integrate the new version. Contact your PayPal Account Manager to enable different versions and request any changes in report distribution.

Notifications

PayPal operationally monitors the generation and delivery of the Case Report on a 24/7 365 basis. PayPal maintains two different user contact points for report notifications:

• A business contact point for all notifications related to data integrity, data delivery, and new reporting features.
• A technical contact for all notifications related to data integrity, data delivery, system outages, system updates, and new features. PayPal will notify you of the following events related to reporting.
• Delays in report delivery.
• Errors in report generation.
• New version availability.
• System outage.
• System update/maintenance(pre-announcement).
• New reporting feature releases.

Contact your PayPal Account Manager to provide PayPal with the appropriate notification email alias. PayPal strongly recommends that you create a distribution list or email alias that allows multiple parties to receive communication about the Case Report.

Report structure

The report can be delivered as either a comma-separated values or tab-delimited file. This section describes the structure of the data file.

A report file can contain a maximum of 150,000 records. If the report contains more than 150,000 records, the report is split across multiple files. The report is also organized by section, where each section represents a single PayPal account. If you are not using PayPal Multiple Account Management, the report contains only a single section.

Report files

A report file with less than 100,000 records (a single file) with only one section is organized as follows:

Report Header (RH)
File Header (FH)
Section Header (SH)
Column Header (CH)
Row Data (SB)
...
Row Data (SB)
Section Footer (SF)
Section Record Count (SC)
Report Footer (RF)
Report Record Count (RC)
File Footer (FF)

For report files that are split over multiple files, only the first file has a report header record and only the last file has a report footer and a report record count record. A report with two sections split over two files might be organized as follows:

If the report is split over multiple files, only the last file contains the report footer and report record count records.

Report row types

Each row of the report consists of a 2-letter row type, followed by the details specific to that row type. The following table lists the valid row types, along with the sections that describe the data for that row type.

Report header data

Report header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Report footer data

Report footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Report record count data

File header data

File header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

File footer data

File footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Section header data

All section header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Section body data

Body data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Before any rows of body data in the report, a column header row lists the name of each of the fields in each body data row. The column header column starts with CH, followed by the Column Name for each body data field (except for the "column type" field). For example:

1"CH","Case type","Case ID","Original transaction ID","Transaction date","Transaction invoice ID","Card type","Case reason","Claimant name","Claimant email address","Case filing date","Case status","Response due date","Disputed amount","Disputed currency","Disputed transaction ID","Money movement","Settlement type","Seller protection","Seller protection payout amount","Seller protection currency","Payment tracking ID","Buyer comments","Store ID","Credit Card Chargeback Reason Code"

Section footer data

Section footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Section record count data

Section record count data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Sample report

The following is a sample of a Case Report:

1"RH",2012/08/13 2012/23:53:12 -0700,"A","HEDH43SEL62QA",007,
2"FH",01
3"SH",2012/08/08 00:00:00 -0700,2012/08/08 23:59:59 -0700,"HEDH43SEL62QA" "CH","Case type","Case ID","Original transaction ID","Transaction date","Transaction invoice ID","Card type","Case reason","Claimant name","Claimant email address","Case filing date","Case status","Response due date","Disputed amount","Disputed currency","Disputed transaction ID","Money movement","Settlement type","Seller protection","Seller protection payout amount","Seller protection currency","Payment tracking ID","Buyer comments","Store ID","Chargeback Reason Code","Outcome" "SB","Claim","PP-000-000-671-683","3E503680WL249060K",2012/08/08 02:03:34 -0700,"","","Non-receipt","Joe's Generic Business","vvaradarajan-20110803-003247994-1-DE-RPP- AUTO@paypal.com",2012/08/08 02:03:34 -0700,"Case Closed",700,"USD","","","Reversal","Eligible",700,"USD","","dfgdfgdf","","","Invalid Tracking" "SB","Claim","PP-000-000-671-725","2HN08243KR496901N",2012/08/08 02:05:09 -0700,"","","Not as described","Joe's Generic Business","vvaradarajan-20110803-003247994-1-DE-RPP- AUTO@paypal.com",2012/08/08 02:34:29 -
40700,"Case Closed",700,"USD","32852380M58924706","Temp Hold Released","Reversal","Eligible",,"","","tehygfhfg","","","3PL vendor lost the package"
5"SF",2
6"SC",2
7"RF",2
8"RC",2
9"FF",2

Version history

See also

• T-codes