How to Dispute a Chargeback with Burlington

Burlington vendor compliance (VC) and freight (FRT) charges must be disputed through Burlington's Traverse Portal, not by email. Shortage and price debits (DMQ and DMC) 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.

For DMQ shortage deductions Burlington publishes the address, the deadline, and the form. Its Domestic Vendor Partnership Manual (May 2026) states: “The shortage dispute form is available from Vendor Relations. All shortage disputes should be emailed to Vendor.Relations@Burlington.com within 6 months of check remittance. Include any backup documentation and a filled-out copy of the Shortage Dispute Form.” Read the rest of that passage before you file, because it constrains how you batch: Burlington asks that all undisputed shortage claims be sent on one dispute form, and specifically instructs vendors not to accumulate shortage disputes on a monthly, quarterly, seasonal, or annual basis. Those two instructions are not in tension. One dispute form covers the claims you are filing at that moment; the prohibition is on holding claims back to file them in periodic batches. File as claims arise, each on the current form, rather than saving up a quarter's worth. Burlington states it researches and responds to shortage disputes within 60 business days.

Burlington's Traverse Portal at burl.traversesystems.com is described in the same manual as the vendor's access point for downloading check remittances, checking invoice status, and updating corporate contacts, with portal access requested from Vendor.Setup@Burlington.com. The remittance download matters to the deadline above: the check remittance date starts the 6-month clock, and the last page of the check remittance carries the detail behind each DMQ shortage debit.

Burlington encodes the deduction type in the AP case-ID prefix, not in a numeric reason code. DMQ marks a shortage or quantity claim; DMC marks a price difference, discount, or substitution, a pricing debit rather than a compliance charge. CMQ is the reversal of a DMQ (a shortage reversal) and CMC is the reversal of a DMC (a price-difference reversal). Burlington's Domestic Vendor Partnership Manual (May 2026) publishes these prefixes directly in its Accounts Payable terms, alongside AN (anticipation), CR (credit), LH (legal hold or charge), MD (markdown), PMDSE (wire payment), and R (received short, recall, RTV, or buyer's request). That prefix list is the taxonomy Burlington publishes. It does not publish a numbered fee or violation schedule in that manual.

• 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
• Carrier-signed BOL carton count, the shipper-sealed-trailer seal record, and the receiving / proof-of-delivery carton count, for concealed-shortage disputes
• EDI 940, 945, and 856 timeline with exact timestamps, plus the order audit trail
• Burlington's supplementary Excel packet, required on the dispute email
• A filled-out copy of Burlington's Shortage Dispute Form, obtained from Vendor Relations, required on a DMQ shortage dispute email per the Domestic Vendor Partnership Manual (May 2026)
• The check remittance itself, whose last page carries the detail behind each DMQ shortage debit and whose date starts the 6-month dispute clock

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 checks the carrier-signed BOL (or the POE packing list) and the signed-short stamp; for a concealed shortage it works from the BOL carton count and the sealed-trailer record; 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.

Roy's role is to match each Burlington deduction to the evidence that overturns it and file it in the right channel: the Traverse Portal for vendor compliance and freight charges, email for shortage and price debits.