Tips for preventing disputes

Dashboard User Notifications for Disputes

Be sure to subscribe to email or mobile push notifications for when disputes are created so you can be prepared to respond to them in a timely manner.

Proactive Booking Reviews

Look at your bookings! Check for valid emails and phone numbers. Refund any payments you suspect are fraudulent as soon as possible. If you think someone is using credit card information fraudulently, refund the booking and make sure you only accept a credit card that matches the ID of someone present.

Consider proactively refunding suspicious payments. You should immediately refund any payment you’re sure is fraud. However, sometimes you might suspect a payment is fraud, but your suspicions fall short of absolute certainty. In such cases, you can still refund the charge and have the customer use a different form of payment upon arrival.

You may also update your notification settings to be notified whenever an email to a customer fails. If an email can’t be delivered, reach out to the customer for a valid email address.

Look out for the use of potentially false information (for example, fake phone numbers and email addresses like asdf124@freemail.example.com). If you are seeing repeat emails or offenders, please contact Support to connect with our dispute team for further assistance.

Card Statement Text

Your card statement text is the text you want to appear on your customer’s bank statement when making a booking. Ensure that this is the recognizable, customer-facing name of your company. Contact FareHarbor Support to confirm or edit your current Card Statement Text.

Refund Reserve

Sometimes customers dispute charges when they do not receive a refund in a timely manner. We recommend keeping money in your Refund Reserve to ensure that any refunds can be processed as quickly as possible for times that you do not have funds in your Future Payout balance.

Refunds from your FareHarbor Future Payouts balance or Refund Reserve are processed right away and usually take customers 3 to 5 business days to see the refund on their card. Refunds sent from your bank account (available for US banks only) typically take 6 to 10 business days to appear on the customer’s card.

Cancellation, refund, and rebooking policies

When drafting your cancellation, refund, and rebooking policies, do not leave anything vague or up to interpretation in your cancellation notes. For online cancellations and online rebookings, be sure to set a realistic and fair cancellation policy.

Note: You can assign a unique cancellation policy to each item, depending on the type of activity.

Below you can find a list of recommended policies for your consideration, along with relevant examples for each suggestion:

Cancellation/Refund Notice and Policies

Examples:

• Refund offered: Customers receive a full refund with 72 hours notice of cancellation before the booking date. This also includes any changes to the reservations whether it be the amount of guests, date, time, or type of tour. Contact us by phone at (company number) or email (company email) to inquire about a cancellation.
• No Refunds offered: No refunds or cancellations once an activity is booked. You may reschedule at any time with a 24 hours notice before the time of your booking. Contact us by phone at (company number) or email (company email) to inquire about adjusting your booking. You must speak directly with our staff to change your time or date.
• Gift Card option: Customers have an option to reschedule or convert to a gift certificate until 24 hours prior to departure.
• No shows: Participants who do not show up for the activity without prior cancellation requests will forfeit the entire booking total and will not be eligible for a refund or rescheduling.
• Last minute bookings: Next day reservations will be considered as FINAL SALE.

Weather Policies

Examples:

• In the event that we need to cancel due to weather, you will receive a refund or have the option to reschedule at no extra cost. We will notify you as soon as possible via phone call, text, or email. If you do not hear from us, please do not assume the excursion is canceled and fail to show up. If the excursion proceeds as planned and you do not attend, you will be charged as a no-show.
• We operate in all weather conditions, rain or shine! Please check the local weather report and dress appropriately. If we need to cancel a trip due to extreme weather or unsafe conditions a full refund will be provided. We closely monitor the weather and will promptly inform ticket holders of any changes via email, SMS, and our social media pages.

Arriving late

Examples:

• Arriving X amount of time late on the date of excursion: NO refund will apply. The fee is not refundable and not reusable.
• If you arrive later than your scheduled tour time you will be considered a NO SHOW and won’t be able to receive a refund OR reschedule your tour.
• Please be aware: check-in begins 60 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Gates will close 20 minutes prior to departure time with no exceptions. We do not provide refunds for late arrivals.

Full experience cannot be fulfilled or is changed

Example:

Due to any unforeseen logistical issues, we reserve the right to alter, substitute, or withdraw individual elements of the event. Where possible we will communicate this in advance. Due to various conditions and unforeseen circumstances, we reserve the right to accommodate your reservation on alternative equipment, reroute to a different destination.

In addition to drafting clear and specific cancellation, refund, and rebooking policies, you can also define policies around dispute processes as well as general processing time. Find relevant examples below:

Refund processing time

Example:

Refunds can take up to 10 business days to be completed and reflected on the original car or bank account. In rare cases, it can take up to 30 business days for a refunded amount to appear.

Dispute Information

To deter potential disputes, it may be helpful to directly mention the dispute process within your policies.

Example:

Disputes: Please reach out to us directly to address any issues with your booking. Resolving disputes through your credit card company or bank can take over 90 days and does not guarantee a refund.

Customer Communication

Be clear and transparent with your customers. Clear and well-timed contact with your customers can help prevent many of the reasons for disputes. By responding to issues and processing refunds quickly, your customers are far less likely to take the time to dispute a payment. Make your customer service contact information easy to find and keep customers updated throughout their order process.

Canned messages, reminder emails, confirmation emails

Send confirmation and reminder emails to customers. In these emails, be sure to reiterate your cancellation, refund, reschedule, and general company policies. Use canned messages for custom reminder email content. We recommend including a specific window of time by which the customer needs to cancel, as well as a phone number and email address that the customer can contact to cancel in these emails.

Customer Booking Process

Be sure to reiterate your cancellation policies in your item descriptions. Additionally, you can include required checkboxes to reiterate your policies and confirm that the customer has read and understands them, as shown in the following example:

Alternatively, if customers would like to gain flexibility to cancel or rebook an activity beyond what is offered in the standard policy, employ trip protection to allow customers to pay a fee at the time of booking to do so. This can be set up as a custom field in the book form and also serve as a policy agreement within your book form as shown below. More information can be found here.

Enable the deposit functionality for high-valued items, collecting the remainder of the transaction with a card reader when the customer arrives.. EMV Card readers can help prevent fraudulent disputes when the disputing card is present during the transaction.

Check-In Process

Ask the customer to sign a receipt or waiver when they arrive for their activity. You can print a receipt from the customer’s confirmation page by clicking the print receipt button. Use the check-in feature in the manifest to keep track of which customers did or did not show up. Contact FareHarbor Support if you’d like to enable this feature. Additionally, it is helpful to keep notes within the manifest about the check-in process. For example:

Poor weather expected today, customer was briefed on our company weather policies and agreed to them before they started their activity

If you have a scanned copy of a customer’s ID, keep it on file in a secure location.

Check IDs when guests arrive and compare the name to the credit card they used to pay for the booking. Make sure they can show you a physical card matching the one used for the booking. You can view credit card information on the customer’s booking by opening the payment summary and clicking Details:

If a customer doesn’t have the credit card they used and you suspect fraud, refund the charge and request a different form of payment.

For additional fraud deterrence, consider implementing a Label custom field on your book form, noting that photo identification is required and must match the name listed on the credit card used to pay for the booking. For example:

For your security, at check-in you are required to present the credit card that was used to pay for your booking along with matching valid photo identification. The name listed on your credit card must be identical to the contact name listed on your booking.

Maintaining booking documentation

After an activity has occurred, ensure that you safely store information that could be used to fight potential disputes. This includes documentation regarding incidentals (accidents, broken parts, lost or broken rentals) as well as any evidence or records that prove a person participated in the tour or activity.

Follow up emails

Send follow up emails to all checked in guests, thanking them for their business and confirming they participated in the activity, and send follow-up emails to non-checked-in guests, reminding them of your policies for no shows, or requests to cancel outside the cancellation window. For all follow-up emails, we recommend directly mentioning what to do if a person was not satisfied with their activity and may want to dispute the charge.

Handling disputes

When a dispute has been filed, you will receive a detailed email from FareHarbor informing you that a customer has disputed a charge. Check the time frame you have to respond and do so accordingly.

If possible, we always recommend contacting the customer directly via phone or email to see if you can resolve the issue without further involvement from the bank or credit card company.

After contacting the customer directly, you can either accept the dispute and allow the customer to receive a refund for the disputed amount, or fight the dispute by submitting an evidence packet to the bank or credit card company, showing that the charge was legitimate. See our Dispute FAQ page to learn more about the dispute process, including what to include in evidence packets.