Chargebacks occur when a client disputes a charge that has been put through on their credit card. When a chargeback is submitted by a client, the associated payment will be reversed and a $20 chargeback fee will be applied to your account.
Chargebacks may be disputed - if you choose to dispute a chargeback there is an additional $15 fee. If the dispute is won, the funds for the initial charge and the dispute fee will be returned to your account. The original chargeback fee is not returned.
If a chargeback is received for a payment processed on your account, a member of the BusyPaws team will reach out to you to let you know and to collect the required information should you wish to file a dispute.
The most common kind of chargebacks we see for pet care companies are "Product not received" or "Product unacceptable". In order to effectively dispute a chargeback of this type, your business must provide clear documentation showing the client received the product/service, communications with the client discussing the transactions, and copies of any contracts signed. These documents can include messages sent to/received from the client, invoices, notes made on their bookings, contracts with agreements to your refund policy, and any other information you can provide to prove that the transaction was valid and either the service was provided or reasonable efforts were made to do so.
The following are best practices that we recommend following to help ensure your business has easy access to all the information required to effectively dispute a chargeback, should one occur.
1. Clearly state your refund and cancellation policies
It is important to be up front with clients regarding your refund and cancellation policies. This helps reduce misunderstandings with your customers further down the line. There are a few places throughout your BusyPaws account where you may wish to post your refund/cancellation policies for your clients.
Refund Policy: Found on your Invoice & Payment Settings page, text added to this field is displayed at the bottom of all your receipts.
Default Invoice Note: Found on your Invoice & Payment Settings page, text added to this field is displayed at the bottom of all your invoices.
Business Description: Found on your General Settings page, text added to this field is displayed beneath your logo at the top of your Public Booking Portal, Public Membership Portal, Package Purchasing Portal, Public Calendar, and the login page of your Private Client Portal.
Forms/Contracts: Found on your Forms & Contracts page, forms allow you to set up written agreements with explanations of your policies that clients must sign if they are booking with your business. This is discussed in more detail in the next section of this guide.
Automated Messaging: Found on your Client Notifications page, your various automated messages can be customized to include information about your business' refund and cancellation policies. Useful notifications in which you may wish to include this information are your booking confirmations and reminders, invoice messages, payment receipt messages, and invoice reminders.
In addition, if your business has a dedicated website you may want to include a page there explaining your refund and cancellation policies for prospective clients.
2. Have customers sign contracts agreeing to your policies during the booking process
Contracts are a great way to ensure your clients are aware of your cancellation and refund policies and that they have agreed to them. Maintaining records of those agreements is one of the best methods you can use to protect your business, should a customer dispute charges made to their account.
There are four main ways that clients can submit intake forms:
Completing the form assigned to a service during self-booking.
Have "Always Send" forms sent to them automatically after booking.
Have forms sent to them manually by a user via their client profile.
Access a form via its direct link.
Though you may choose to include your policies and legal agreements within forms to be completed in any of those ways, we recommend using either service-assigned forms or those set to "Always Send" as both of those options allow clients to access and complete their forms through automated processes, instead of requiring manual effort by you and your team. To help you decide which option may work best for your business, we have outlined the differences in the table below.
Forms assigned to services | Forms set to "Always Send" |
Completed during self-booking, prior to booking confirmation | Sent to clients automatically with their booking confirmation message |
Customers unable to complete their booking registration unless the form is submitted | Form received after registration is completed |
Form may include service-specific information (can assign a different form to each service if desired) | Form sent to all customers, regardless of which service they have booked (ideal for agreements applying to all services offered by your business) |
Each service may have only one form directly assigned | Many forms may be set to "Always Send" |
Only those customers self-booking the service to which the form has been assigned will be required to complete it | All customers who have not yet completed the form will have a "Missing Required Forms" tag added to their profile |
In most cases, clients end up signing agreement prior to payment | In many cases, clients may end up being prompted to sign the agreement after submitting payment |
3. Keep a record of all client communications
Client communication records can be the most reliable way to prove either that purchased services were provided, or that your business made a concerted effort to work with the customer. These communications may include any automated notifications (booking confirmations, reminders, etc.), manual messages sent by you and your team, and any responses received from the customer.
To help keep your client communications organized, it is recommended to message your customers through BusyPaws rather than using additional messaging platforms. All SMS and emails sent to clients through your BusyPaws account are stored on their Customer Profile pages. By keeping all your records in once place, you will not only have an easier time managing your incoming messages, but should you ever need to compile communications to dispute a chargeback you need only check the Messages tab on the customer's profile page.
It is worth noting that, in most cases, it's best to archive message threads (or simply leave them in your inbox) rather than deleting them. Once a thread has been deleted it is not possible to recover that data. This is especially important to consider when managing threads the involve any disputes or complaints from clients, as well as those with manual messages/responses around organizing the time/date of their booking (whether to initially schedule, to reschedule, or to cancel).
4. Make notes on bookings and progress
Though not always as important as your messaging history (they are not visible to clients and therefore include only information from your team's end of things), notes made on bookings and customer profiles can be a useful way to demonstrate the effort made by your team to provide the purchased services to your clients.
Notes may be added to a booking's information page, a pet profile, or on a customer's profile (note that booking notes are also listed on the profile of any client registered for that booking). They may include information about whether clients attended the booking, if there were any issues with scheduling, what progress has been made, what was covered during a booking, etc.
Adding regular notes to your client profiles and bookings can be a very effective way to keep records of client behaviour and a develop a more detailed service history. Since all notes are listed with the date and time they were added, they can help provide a more extensive timeline of events, should your team need to provide proof of service. In addition, notes allow you and your team to store information on conversations that do not have records of their own, such as those held in person or over the phone.
As an aside, you may wish to use report cards as part of your record keeping process. Report cards can be completed on your bookings and sent to your clients to provide them with regular updates on their pet. They also allow you to easily send (and keep records of) photos or videos taken during the provided service. As such, any report cards relating to disputed services/charges can be an excellent way to provide proof of service.
A Note on Fraudulent Transactions
It is important to remember that if charges have been put through fraudulently (i.e. on someone else's credit card), they are very likely to be subject to chargebacks. If ever you are concerned that one or more of your processed payments may be fraudulent, it is often best to simply refund those charges. Though payment processing fees are not returned to your account when their associated payments are refunded, preemptively refunding fraudulent payments prevents you from needing to pay a chargeback fee on top of having the funds reversed from your account.
Excessive chargebacks on your account can increase your dispute rate to the point where your ability to use Stripe may be impacted.