Recovery playbook
Telling a seller you are recovering funds
The technical recovery is the easy half. The other half is a human reading a debit on their payout and deciding what kind of company you are. Silent reversals read as theft; noticed reversals read as administration. These three templates cover the common cases — adapt the numbers, keep the structure, and send them before the money moves wherever your terms allow.
Template 1 — reversal notice
Subject: "Action taken on transaction [charge id]". Body: what happened — the refund, the date, the amount; what it cost whom, stated plainly; what we did — the reversal, with id; and what changes in our systems so it does not recur. Factual throughout, no blame, no apology theatre. Sellers forgive errors handled cleanly; they remember companies that hid them.
Template 2 — netting notice
Subject: "Adjustment to your next payout". Body: the amount owed and why (finding reference, transaction ids); the next payout date it will be deducted from; the ledger reference for their records; and the window in which they can dispute the entry. Forward-looking and calm — the seller keeps earning, sees the deduction coming, and retains a path to challenge it.
Template 3 — write-off closure
For dormant or irrecoverable items: "We have closed this item and no further action is needed or will be taken." Attach the transaction history. Closure messages cost nothing, end loops, and — surprisingly often — prompt dormant sellers to re-engage, which revives recovery options anyway.
The terms sentence underneath
All three templates presume rights you must actually have: direction only, explicitly not legal advice — recovery rights following reconciliation findings, setoff rights against future payouts, a defined notice period, and a dispute window. Counsel reviews the clause; operations applies the templates. Recovering under agreed terms is administration; under no terms it is a dispute of your own making.
What FeeGuard contributes
Every finding carries the charge id, transfer id, amounts and dates the templates reference, so composing a notice is assembly rather than archaeology. CSV export feeds bulk sends; the append-only audit trail is your evidence if a recovery is ever challenged — including by the seller’s lawyer rather than the seller.
Common questions
Email first or reverse first?
For active sellers, notice-then-action inside the notice period. For fraud reason codes, act first and notify simultaneously — the calculus differs when the counterparty is not presumed honest.
Can we skip notice below a small amount?
Below your floor, yes — sending mail about $4 costs more than $4. Set the floor deliberately and let everything above it get the full treatment.
What if the seller disputes the recovery publicly?
Show the finding: charge, refund, expected versus actual reversal, timestamps, policy clause. Evidence chains end arguments; adjectives start them.