Ep # 169: AI for Dispute Fighting: Turning Usage Data Into Bank-Readable Evidence ft. Patrick Petteruti (Founder, Chargeblast)

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Patrick Petteruti, Co-founder of Chargeblast, to explore how fast-growing consumer, DTC, and e-commerce businesses can keep chargebacks from becoming a business-ending payments problem, starting with Patrick’s origin story scaling Cramly.ai on Stripe and getting hit by rising disputes, then building Chargeblast’s chargeback alerts so merchants can refund early and keep dispute rates low; they dig into why matching issuer alerts to processor transaction records is hard across tokenized payment methods, how Chargeblast moved from being Stripe-first to supporting 35+ processors and gateways, what onboarding looks like when setup takes minutes instead of months, the tradeoffs of staying on Stripe versus routing volume across multiple processors to improve acceptance and lower fees, the most common dispute-heavy categories (subscriptions, telehealth, iOS apps moving to Stripe, and other higher-risk verticals), why pre-launch sales often trigger dispute spikes, how Chargeblast grows through a mix of direct sales, partnerships (including with payment platforms), and strong referral loops, plus the operating model behind white-glove support, including a large Philippines-based team, a portfolio-wide chargeback log that flags spikes or bad data, and rapid 24/7 live chat, ending with Patrick’s view on where AI can help most next: assembling clear, structured evidence packs for banks during dispute fights by pulling usage and customer proof from whatever systems a merchant uses.