How to Dispute a Chargeback with Burlington
Burlington chargebacks are disputed by email, and the deduction type is encoded in the case ID: DMQ<invoice> marks a quantity or shortage claim, and DMC<invoice> marks a compliance claim. The numeric part of the case ID is the invoice number, not the PO, so the claim PO is a prefix that must be resolved to the full ERP PO before any lookup runs. A Burlington shortage dispute is hard-gated on a carrier-signed bill of lading, or, for POE import warehouses, the ocean-container packing list; an unsigned BOL does not meet Burlington's evidence bar. Burlington is not an EDI 754 routing partner, so a missing 754 is never evidence. Burlington also requires a supplementary Excel packet on the dispute email.
At a glance
- Submission channel
- Portal or mailbox
- Email submission; the dispute email carries the default attachments plus Burlington's required supplementary Excel packet
- Case-ID / notice shape
- DMQ<invoice> for quantity or shortage, DMC<invoice> for compliance; the numeric portion is the invoice number, and the claim PO is a prefix that resolves to the full ERP PO
- EDI partner
- Not an EDI 754 routing partner; compliance is proven on the EDI 940, 945, and 856 timeline
- Banners covered
- Burlington
Submission channel
Burlington disputes are filed by email, and Burlington requires its supplementary Excel packet attached alongside the default evidence set. Before any lookup, resolve the claim PO prefix to the full ERP PO, because the numeric part of the DMQ or DMC case ID is the invoice number rather than the PO. A compliance claim filed without a BOL generally still needs a packing list attached.
Reason-code taxonomy at a glance
Burlington issues three dispute types. Shortage and non-receipt appear under reason codes 430, 460, 465, and 415 on DMQ or DMC case IDs. Concealed shortage appears under 465 and 470; reason code 470, labeled “Vendor Billed Incorrectly,” sounds like a pricing code but Burlington uses it for goods billed but not received inside sealed cartons, so it is routed as a concealed shortage and never as a pricing dispute. Compliance, routing, ASN, and labeling appear under reason codes 415, 205, and EOM end-of-month rollups, typically on DMC case IDs.
Shortage / non-receipt
A Burlington shortage deduction is disputable when the carrier-signed BOL, or for POE import warehouses the ocean-container packing list, shows shipped units approximately equal to ordered and carries no “signed short” stamp. Accept the charge when the BOL is annotated “signed short” or delivered units fall below ordered; route to review when the BOL row is missing or the quantities are ambiguous, or when the POE packing list cannot be located. A signed BOL is non-negotiable for domestic-DC shortage disputes. Required evidence: the carrier-signed BOL with driver signature, reconciled against PO quantity ordered and invoice billed quantity, with carton count, ship date, carrier, and warehouse code; for POE warehouses (POELA and POENJ), no per-PO BOL exists by design, so the freight-forwarder packing list or ocean-container list is the shipment proof instead.
Concealed shortage
A Burlington concealed shortage, under reason codes 465 and 470, alleges units were missing inside sealed cartons that were signed for at the correct carton count. It is disputable only through weight reconciliation, because the signed-BOL quantity match alone does not disprove a concealed shortage when the cartons were signed for and only the contents are disputed. Dispute when shipped weight approximately equals the full-order weight within roughly 2% tolerance; accept when the weight falls short by at least the claimed shortage's weight; route to review otherwise or when item weights are missing. Required evidence: the signed BOL total gross weight compared against the computed expected weight (the sum of quantity ordered multiplied by average weight per piece, plus carton count multiplied by carton weight), using per-SKU weights from the AMT Style table, with the per-SKU item-weights CSV materialized as the retailer-facing proof; inner-pack multiple-ness is not usable as evidence because vendors ship partial inner packs.
Compliance (routing / ASN / labeling / late ship)
Burlington compliance chargebacks, under reason codes 415, 205, and EOM, cover routing, ASN, labeling, and packing violations, for example a late or missing EDI 856 ASN relative to physical pickup, or pallet and carton labeling non-conformance whose penalties scale per pallet. They are disputable when the EDI evidence (940, 945, and 856) shows the compliance element was met within the window; accept when the EDI confirms the violation; route to review for retailer-TMS-specific rules that have no AMT EDI counterpart. Required evidence: the warehouse 940, the warehouse 945 (the strongest proof of the actual ship date), the ASN 856 (proof that the ship notice was transmitted), and the order audit trail for date changes or cancellations, with exact timestamps cited. Because Burlington does not send EDI 754 routing, a missing 754 must never be cited as evidence.
What evidence you need
- Carrier-signed bill of lading with driver signature, reconciled against PO quantity ordered and invoice billed quantity (carton count, ship date, carrier, warehouse code)
- Freight-forwarder or ocean-container packing list for POE import warehouses (POELA, POENJ), where no per-PO BOL exists
- Signed BOL total gross weight plus per-SKU item weights from the AMT Style table, materialized as the item-weights CSV, for concealed-shortage reconciliation
- EDI 940, 945, and 856 timeline with exact timestamps, plus the order audit trail
- Burlington's supplementary Excel packet, required on the dispute email
How Roy disputes Burlington
Roy resolves the claim PO prefix to the full ERP PO, reads the deduction type from the DMQ or DMC case ID, and pulls the evidence that type requires. For a shortage it reconciles the carrier-signed BOL (or the POE packing list) against PO and invoice quantities and checks the signed-short stamp; for a concealed shortage it runs the weight reconciliation against the AMT Style-table weights; for a compliance claim it compares the 940, 945, and 856 timeline against the window. It never cites a missing EDI 754 as evidence, and it produces the email dispute packet with the default attachments plus Burlington's required supplementary Excel.
Across the industry roughly 5% of vendor revenue is lost to deductions and chargebacks; Roy's role is to match each Burlington deduction to the evidence that overturns it and file it by email.
Related retailers & next steps
Related email-channel retailers with a signed-BOL evidence gate: Bealls (its sister-sourcing retailer) and Dollar General. See the Deduction Code Library for reason codes 430, 465, and 470 in detail.