How disputes work

1. The only three things we lock in

When a Commit Link is created, three details are frozen at the moment the buyer pays:

1. What. the list of deliverables
2. How much. the amount
3. When. the deadline (defaults to 30 days if not set)

Once the buyer pays, none of these can change. No scope creep, no price bumps, no deadline drift. This is why it matters to write deliverables specifically and truthfully at creation: they become the contract.

2. Revisions vs. deliverables

Two different concepts, two different rules:

2.1. Deliverables are the items that must be produced. Examples: "Logo in SVG, PNG, PDF", "Source code repository", "Landing page URL". Deliverables are locked at deal creation and can be rejected only by pointing to a specific item that is missing. Rejections count as strikes (see section 4).

2.2. Revision rounds are iteration cycles on a delivered item. They are a separate property of the deal, set by the seller at creation (default: 0). If the buyer wants changes to a delivered item, they use a revision round. Revisions do not count as strikes.

2.3. A revision request must be tied to a specific deliverable and can only ask for changes within that deliverable's original description. Asking for something new that was not in the deliverables list is not a revision, it is scope creep and is not supported.

2.4. When revision rounds are used up, the buyer can only accept a deliverable or reject it as missing. There is no fourth option.

3. The four possible outcomes

Every deal ends in exactly one of these four states. Each is triggered automatically by the rules below. No person at Holdy reviews or decides the outcome.

3.1. Settled. seller paid

The seller uploads every deliverable on the list and the buyer clicks "Accept". Stripe settles the payout. Done.

3.2. Auto-settled. seller paid

The seller uploads every deliverable on the list and the buyer does not respond within 7 days. Stripe settles the payout automatically. Done.

3.3. Refunded (missed deadline). buyer paid back

The deadline passes and the seller has not uploaded one or more deliverables. Stripe refunds the buyer automatically. No dispute needed, no button to press.

3.4. Refunded (two-strike on a deliverable). buyer paid back

The seller uploaded something, the buyer rejected it as missing, the seller re-uploaded, the buyer rejected it as missing again, and the cycle reaches its cap. Stripe refunds the buyer automatically.

That is the complete list of outcomes. There is no fifth outcome, no tiebreaker, no human override of these rules.

4. The two-strike rule

4.1. Each deal has a single cumulative rejection counter, starting at zero. The counter is per deal, not per deliverable.

4.2. When the buyer rejects a deliverable as missing, the deal counter goes up by one and the seller has 7 days to re-upload that deliverable.

4.3. When two valid rejections have been recorded on the deal — across any combination of deliverables — the deal refunds automatically. The buyer does not need to keep re-rejecting the same deliverable to trigger the refund; two cumulative rejections on the deal is the cap.

4.4. Rejections that are invalidated through the escalation review process (see section 8) decrement the deal counter and reverse the strike. The seller can flag a rejection they believe is abusive; if our review confirms it does not meet the rejection criteria, the strike is reversed and the deliverable returns for the buyer to review.

4.5. A deal also refunds when a deliverable misses its final per-item re-upload deadline (7 days after a rejection) or when the overall deal deadline passes with one or more deliverables still uncovered. A deal is not complete unless every deliverable is covered.

5. What counts as "covered"

5.1. A deliverable is marked covered when the seller uploads a file, shares a link, or posts a text response through Holdy and explicitly links it to an item on the list.

5.2. The buyer can reject a deliverable only by selecting it from the list and indicating it is not covered. They cannot reject with "not what I wanted", "needs more work", or any general feedback. If they try to reject without pointing to a specific list item, the rejection is invalid and the acceptance clock keeps running.

5.3. Uploads that are later invalidated during escalation review (see section 8) are treated as if they were never uploaded. The deliverable returns to pending and the regular deadline rules continue.

6. What we do not decide

Holdy does not decide:

• Whether the work is "good enough"
• Whether the client loves the result
• Whether expectations were reasonable
• Whether the delivered work matches the buyer's taste
• Whether revisions are fair in number
• Whether deadlines were "close enough"

Those are conversations between the parties. They happen in chat, or outside the platform, but not through our dispute system.

If you feel the work was delivered but not at the quality you expected, that is a quality dispute. Use your bank's chargeback process or a certified ADR entity (see section 9). We will provide both sides with the full deal record (deliverables list, uploads, timestamps, chat log, delivery hashes), but we do not weigh in on who is right.

Holdy is currently offered to business users only (see Clause 5.2 of the Terms), so consumer-protection statutes such as the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the EU Consumer Rights Directive do not apply between the parties on the platform. Quality complaints between two businesses fall under ordinary contract and tort law and are pursued directly between the parties (or through a court / certified ADR entity), not through Holdy's rule-based engine.

7. Fees on refunds

If a deal refunds for any reason. missed deadline, two-strike cap, or mutual request. the non-refundable Holdy platform fee is retained (Clause 9.4 of the Terms). The buyer receives the deal amount minus the platform fee. Stripe's processor fees are refunded where Stripe's policy allows.

8. Escalation and abuse review

Normal deals run 100% automatically. A dispute resolution decision is never made by a person at Holdy. What we do have, however, is an escalation review for abuse signals. Escalation does not change deal outcomes, it corrects corrupted inputs so that the rules can work correctly.

8.1. What can be escalated

Three types of signals can be flagged for review:

• Fake or placeholder uploads. Empty files, template content, off-topic material, or uploads that do not correspond to the deliverable they claim to cover.
• Abusive rejections. Rejections that do not reference a specific missing item from the deliverables list, or rejections of items that are objectively covered by the upload.
• Scope-creep revision requests. Revisions that ask for something outside the original deliverable description.

Flags can be raised by either party via a dedicated "Report" button on the relevant upload, rejection, or revision. Some flags are raised automatically by pattern detection (e.g. uploads under 1KB, duplicate hashes, rejections without a selected list item).

8.2. What escalation review can do

The reviewer is a human Holdy team member. We use AI assistance to surface and pre-classify flags (for example, comparing an upload against the deliverable description), but the AI never decides the outcome on its own — every confirmation or dismissal is reviewed and signed off by a person before any strike is removed or any upload is invalidated. This human-in-the-loop is required by Article 22 GDPR for any decision producing legal effects.

The reviewer evaluates the flagged signal against objective criteria. For example, for a fake-upload flag: does the file content match the deliverable description? Is the file a placeholder or empty? The decision is a yes/no on the flag itself, not a judgment on the dispute outcome.

• Upload confirmed fake: the upload is invalidated and the deliverable returns to pending. Regular deadline rules continue.
• Rejection confirmed abusive: the strike is removed and the deliverable remains covered. Regular acceptance clock continues.
• Revision confirmed as scope creep: the revision round is restored to the seller's budget. The seller can ignore the request.

If the reviewer dismisses the flag (no abuse confirmed), nothing changes and the deal continues as it was.

8.3. What escalation review cannot do

Escalation review cannot:

• Force a deal to settle or refund
• Override the deadline or strike counter
• Change the deliverables list
• Determine "who wins" a disagreement

The reviewer writes down the objective criteria used and the outcome of each check. The log is retained for audit and accessible to both parties on request.

8.4. Account-level actions

Where a user shows a pattern of abuse (multiple confirmed fake uploads, multiple confirmed abusive rejections, or the thresholds below), Holdy may restrict or suspend the account. Account actions do not affect open deals, which continue to settle under the regular rules. Account actions are not about the money on any single deal, they are about platform access going forward.

9. External remedies

This policy governs only the on-Holdy dispute mechanism. Your other rights always apply in full:

• EU/EEA consumers: certified alternative dispute resolution (ADR). In the Netherlands: De Geschillencommissie. Other EU countries: find your national ADR entity via consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu.
• UK consumers: CEDR.
• Anyone: your bank's chargeback process (for cards) or reversal rights (for SEPA/ACH). We will provide the full deal record as evidence but will not contest the outcome when the claim is about subjective quality.

10. Abuse prevention

All pattern-based, automatic, not discretionary:

• Buyers with more than 5 refunds in any 30-day period are temporarily restricted from opening new deals until they contact us.
• Sellers with more than 3 missed deadlines in any 30-day period are temporarily restricted from creating new Commit Links until they contact us.
• Attempts to fabricate deliverables (empty files, placeholder links, off-topic uploads) result in account suspension after review. Detection is via automated file checks plus the buyer rejection flow, not via human review of individual deal outcomes.

Thresholds may change over time. Current values are always on this page.

11. Timeline

The maximum time between first upload and a resolved deal depends on how many strikes accrue:

• Clean deal, buyer accepts: minutes to days
• Clean deal, buyer silent: auto-settles after 7 days
• One strike on one deliverable: up to 14 days (7 to re-upload + 7 for buyer)
• Two strikes on one deliverable: up to 21 days before automatic refund
• Missed original deadline (default 30 days): refund is immediate once the deadline passes

12. Consistency commitment

12.1. The same facts always produce the same outcome because the outcome is determined by rules, not by a person. There is no reviewer bias, no day-of-week effect, no "who you got" lottery.

12.2. Material changes to this policy require 14 days' notice to existing users. We do not change the rules mid-deal: the policy in effect at the time of your deal is the policy applied.

13. Plain-language summary

1. Seller uploads everything on the list, on time → seller gets paid.
2. Seller misses the deadline → buyer gets an automatic refund.
3. Seller uploads something that does not cover a specific item → buyer rejects that item. Two strikes on one item, then automatic refund.
4. Revisions are iterations on delivered items, not strikes. Budget is set at deal creation.
5. Quality complaints ("I don't like it") are not handled here. Use chargeback or ADR.
6. Escalation review fixes abuse signals but does not decide deal outcomes.

Nobody at Holdy decides any deal outcome. The rules run the deal, we run the rails.

14. Contact

Questions about a specific deal: reply to the emails we send you, or use the in-product chat on the deal.

Questions about the policy itself: disputes@getholdy.com.