Proof of what your agent was allowed to buy.
Write a mandate in plain words. Your agent shops inside it, and every PayPal payment carries the record.
“Buy running shoes, size 10, under $120, neutral colors, this week only.”
- Category
- Running shoes
- Constraints
- US men's 10, beige, black, gray or white
- Merchants
- Any of the 3 demo stores
- Expires
- Sun, Oct 25, 11:59 PM ET
On agents, New York's acting Superintendent of Financial Services says the department has been very focused on one question: “where does liability sit?” American Banker, Jun 26, 2026, opens in a new tab
Agent purchases have no liability rule yet
Shopping agents already pay on behalf of people. When one of those purchases is disputed, this is where things stand.
$36.9 billion in 2026$46.1 billion in 2029
Projected global cost of chargebacks to merchants. No public source reports a dispute rate for agent orders yet. Figures from Mastercard research by Datos Insights, as reported by Chargeflow, Jul 7, 2026, opens in a new tab
No rule says who pays
There is still no concrete chargeback liability rule for purchases made by shopping agents. When a buyer says the agent bought something it was not allowed to, card network and federal rules give no clean answer. Merchant Cost Consulting, Oct 10, 2026, opens in a new tab
The merchant carries the loss
A disputed agent purchase generally follows card not present rules, so the merchant bears the loss unless it wins the dispute. Chargeflow, Jul 7, 2026, opens in a new tab
Close calls favor the cardholder
The author expects the cardholder to win gray area disputes, and notes that with an agent, the buyer may never have touched the merchant's site at all. Merchant Cost Consulting, Oct 10, 2026, opens in a new tab
Keep what the customer authorized
The playbook tells merchants to keep, for each agent order, the customer's mandate: what was authorized, including the price cap, the merchants allowed and the expiry. Chargeflow, Jul 19, 2026, opens in a new tab
How Mandate answers it
One signed record follows the purchase from the buyer's words to the merchant's dispute response.
- 1
The buyer signs a mandate
Plain words become terms: budget, category, sizes and colors, stores, expiry, number of orders. Signing fixes them with a SHA256 fingerprint and a timestamp.
- 2
Every payment is checked first
Before PayPal is asked to move money, the cart is checked against every term by code. A cart outside the mandate is blocked, and only the buyer can widen the mandate, with a new signature.
- 3
A dispute gets the record
When a buyer disputes an agent order, the merchant gets an evidence file built from the signed mandate, the check and the order, reviews the response and submits it to PayPal.
Try it without signing up
Each visitor gets a private demo session: your mandates are visible to you only. Payments run in the PayPal sandbox, so no real money moves. Switch to the merchant side at any time to see agent orders and answer a dispute.