Disputes and chargebacks

A chargeback is a customer asking their bank, rather than you, to reverse a payment. It is rare on dock work — the customer can see the dock in the water — but when it happens it runs on a deadline, and a missed deadline loses it whatever the facts are.

It is your dispute

What happens when a payment is disputed

1. The bank takes the money back straight away, while the dispute is decided. Stripe takes the disputed amount from your Stripe balance, and charges its dispute fee.
2. Stripe tells you — by email to your Stripe account and in your Stripe dashboard, with the reason the bank gave and the date evidence is due.
3. LakeOps records it: the dispute appears on the job’s activity, and LakeOps keeps its own record of the amount, reason, status and evidence deadline.

Answering it, before the deadline

Respond in your Stripe dashboard, on the dispute itself. The date on it is set by the card network and is usually a few weeks away; Stripe will not accept evidence after it. What makes a strong response on dock work is already in LakeOps:

• the job, with each piece marked done, by whom and when;
• the crew’s photos of the finished work;
• when the completion email went to the customer (on the job’s activity), and the receipt;
• for a card on file, the exact authorization wording the customer agreed to, with its date and time;
• your refund policy as it read when they paid — LakeOps keeps a copy of it on each payment.

If you have not published a refund policy, do it now under Settings → Payments: it is the first thing a bank asks for, and your customers see it before they pay.

When it is decided

Outcome	The money	In LakeOps
Won	Stripe returns the disputed amount to your balance	The payment stands; the job stays paid
Lost	The customer keeps the refund from their bank	Recorded as a chargeback against the payment, and the job owes that amount again

On a lost dispute the customer is not sent a refund email, because you did not refund them. The job goes back to owing, so it reappears on your balances report — whether to chase it is your call.

What it costs

• Stripe’s dispute fee, on top of the disputed amount. The amount is on Stripe’s pricing page for your country.
• Stripe’s processing fee on the original payment is not returned.
• The LakeOps fee on the payment is not returned either, win or lose. Stripe only gives that fee back on a refund that asks for it, and a chargeback is not a refund. See refunds and who pays the fees.

The cheapest dispute is the one that never starts

Most chargebacks are customers who did not recognize the charge or could not reach anyone. A recognizable statement name, a support phone on your emails, and a reply-to address that reaches a person all make “call the company” easier than “call the bank”. If a customer asks for their money back and you agree, refund it from LakeOps — that costs you less than losing a dispute.