Clarify documentation around returns on an ACH debit (incl. fees)

[nealtovsen]

The immediate question I was trying to answer is whether the marketplace gets charged a fee for a return on an ACH.

In trying to find the answer, I discovered that much of the documentation is a bit murky in general with regards to ACH debits. I see issue #303, which may address this, but wanted to track this specific question of handling returns.

I'm not 100% certain, but my understanding is that a chargeback only happens when a payer initiates the dispute process. The payment network itself would never initiate some sort of reversal/chargeback after it was successful. Correct?

https://docs.balancedpayments.com/1.1/guides/disputes/#disputes

Conversely, I'm not sure if there is an equivalent dispute process for ACH. But the ACH network can issue returns, which AFAIK are initiated internally by the ACH network itself. For example, an ACH return can sometimes occur simply because the bank later (presumably due to the async batch processing nature of the system) realized that the funds weren't actually available in the account at that time, and issues a reversal.

The API docs are a little fuzzy, but it seems the payment should transition to Failed status, which is logical. But...

• Will the marketplace be charged a fee?
• And is there any guidance regarding how the marketplace should handle this situation with a seller?
• Can the docs be updated to make this whole topic more clear?