Handle a Payment Dispute

A dispute is a client telling their bank the charge was wrong. The money is pulled from you immediately, and you get one chance to argue.

Disputes in the left navigation, gated by the Dispute permission. Keep that permission narrow.

Respond fast

There is a deadline, and missing it loses by default. Dispute notifications in Communications exist for exactly this — turn them on for whoever will actually act.

Decide whether to fight it

Sometimes the right answer is to accept. If the client is right, or the amount is small and the relationship matters, accepting is cheaper than the time it costs to fight.

Fight it when the charge was legitimate and you can prove it.

What actually wins

Evidence that the client agreed to what happened. In order of usefulness:

1. The booking record — they booked, they were told the price, they were shown the policy.
2. The policy they were shown. This is why Custom policy text exists on the Appointment Settings tab, and why it is included in reminders.
3. The reminder they received. Communications logs that it went.
4. The signed or tapped receipt from the card reader.
5. The service history — a returning client who has paid this way twenty times.
6. Your correspondence with them since.

Perceny holds most of this for you. Gather it into the response rather than writing a paragraph of explanation: banks weigh documents, not narratives.

Disputes on fees

No-show and cancellation fees are the most commonly disputed charges in a service business. What wins them is the same chain every time:

• The client saw the policy while booking.
• The reminder repeated it.
• The fee charged matches what the policy said.

If any link is missing, expect to lose. That is the real reason to write the policy carefully and to keep the fee amounts consistent with it.

What you cannot do

• You cannot refund a disputed charge. Once it is a dispute, it leaves the refund path. Trying creates a second problem.
• You cannot re-charge the client to make up for it.

After it resolves

Whatever the outcome, decide what changes:

• Lost because the policy was not clear? Rewrite Custom policy text.
• Lost because there was no card on file and the fee went to an unrelated card? Review the "charge the default card on file" settings and whether you should be requiring cards up front.
• Lost because the client genuinely did not recognise the charge? Check what your statement descriptor says.

Preventing them

Most disputes in a salon are recognition failures, not fraud: the client does not remember the name on the statement, or does not remember agreeing to a fee. The fixes are unglamorous — a clear descriptor, a disclosed policy, a reminder that repeats it, and receipts that name the service.