Refunds in the boberdoo system are exactly like those in retail. You know the scenario. You grab a shirt at the store only to realize when you get home it does not fit like you wanted. Leads are no different. You get one, and it turns out that the phone number did not work or the fields did not match up. One way to prevent this would be to run quality checks, but we are past that point if you already bought the lead. Your only option is to try and get the lead refunded.
There are two ways that leads can be refunded: a bulk refund and a one-off basis. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but some work better for different use cases or business sizes.
One-Off Requests
The boberdoo system comes with standard refund reasons. The most common ones are non-working phone numbers, low quality leads (which a quality checker can fix as mentioned above), or acquisition of an answering machine. There are others, but if there is one you do not see, reasons can be customized to whatever you want, like a list of values for a field.
At the account level you can set refunds, but the seller needs to approve or deny the refund. Refunds can be approved or denied in the Refunds tab. If approved, the money goes back into their account; , if denied, the money is not refunded and the lead is kept in the buyer account. To request a refund, you can go to the Partners tab then Manage Partner Account followed by Request Refund.
Bulk Refund Requests
To start a bulk refund, you can go to the Partners tab then Manage Partner Account followed by the Bulk Refund Request. A bulk refund request will need to be a CSV file to upload. This is how to request multiple refunds all at once. The seller still needs to approve or deny them, but if you are a seller, you have the option to automatically approve bulk refunds. This can be found under the Refunds tab, then Approve Refunds. However, heed this warning: , it should ONLY be used for trusted buyers. It is time consuming to go through refunds, but it is better than losing all your profit from them.
Refund Chains & How to Overcome Them
A refund chain is a common occurrence in this industry. With so many vendors and resellers, it is bound to occur. A refund chain is what happens when a buyer wants a refund from a seller who re-sold that lead to them. So, the middle-man will need to go back to their seller (vendor) and get the refund from them. It is either do that or eat the cost of a lead they did not even generate.
This is where the Admin Returns Report in the boberdoo system comes in. The report shows leads that have been requested for refunds, what was requested, the reason, cost, etc. And it was created specifically for following refund chains for these vendors. They can also be set as a timed report to be automatically sent out, only containing specific vendor returns. This is a huge time saver because it breaks it down by vendors and only sends the refunds to that specific vendor. So, if you have 5 vendors who owe refund, you can generate 5 different reports, one for each vendor to track what is owed.
boberdoo also has APIs to address refund requests and webhooks to connect to vendors' APIs based on request, approvals, decline, etc.