Disputes, Refunds, and Appeals

Draft 0.1 — 2 August 2026
This protocol is a product baseline, not a substitute for contractual dispute clauses, statutory rights, card-network procedures, arbitration rules, or courts.

Objective

Disputes are inevitable in a network where people perform work, fund features, share evidence, and temporarily manage products.

ANUKA must make disagreements legible and resolvable without allowing one party to erase history, freeze funds indefinitely, or weaponize reputation.

Dispute principles

Preserve evidence before debating conclusions.
Separate payment-network disputes from platform merits review.
Give each affected party notice and a meaningful response opportunity.
Use deadlines, but permit justified extensions.
Disclose reviewer conflicts.
Keep temporary protective action separate from final findings.
Allow correction and appeal.
Do not punish a good-faith dispute as reputation abuse.
Use the least destructive remedy that addresses the issue.
Preserve external legal rights.

Dispute types

Scope dispute

The parties disagree about what the assignment required.

Acceptance dispute

A contributor believes declared criteria were met; the issuer disagrees.

Payment dispute

The amount, timing, fee, allocation, hold, transfer, or refund is challenged.

Outcome attribution dispute

The parties disagree about measurement, causality, credit, or bonus calculation.

Duplicate contribution dispute

Multiple participants claim priority or independent value.

Reputation dispute

A participant or company challenges a credential, score, review, status, or public record.

Access or stewardship dispute

A steward challenges suspension, removal, authority change, budget action, or handover finding.

Conduct or safety dispute

A party alleges fraud, harassment, security abuse, confidentiality breach, discrimination, sanctions risk, or other prohibited behavior.

Payment-network dispute

A cardholder or issuer initiates a chargeback or inquiry through the payment provider.

Case record

Every dispute receives:

case_id;
dispute type;
related opportunity, assignment, campaign, payment, or credential;
claimant;
responding parties;
claimed remedy;
status;
deadlines;
evidence index;
temporary measures;
reviewer or panel;
conflicts;
decision;
appeal status;
external proceeding references where appropriate.

Filing

A claimant should provide:

disputed decision or event;
specific reason;
supporting evidence;
desired remedy;
urgency or safety concern;
confidentiality requirements.

The interface should help structure the claim without requiring legal language.

Initial triage

Triage determines:

jurisdiction and applicable product terms;
urgency;
whether funds or access require temporary protection;
whether the matter belongs to Stripe, a card network, law enforcement, regulator, court, arbitration, or another provider;
whether consolidation with related cases is appropriate;
reviewer qualification;
expected timeline.

Temporary measures

Possible measures include:

pause payout;
reserve disputed amount;
suspend access;
disable a public claim;
label a credential disputed;
preserve logs;
rotate secrets;
stop an experiment;
suspend a campaign;
limit communication channels.

A temporary measure is not a finding of fault.

The measure must record:

reason;
scope;
decision owner;
start;
review time;
conditions for removal.

Evidence preservation

Relevant evidence may include:

versioned terms;
assignment and acceptance criteria;
messages;
code and commit hashes;
test results;
product events;
payment-provider events;
ledger entries;
access logs;
reviewer notes;
metric contracts;
campaign revisions;
consent records;
attestations and status lists.

Evidence must be collected proportionately and with appropriate privacy controls.

Response process

The responding party receives:

claim summary;
material evidence that may be shared;
applicable rules;
response deadline;
available remedies;
reviewer identity or selection process;
confidentiality notice.

Hidden evidence may be used only under a defined process that protects legitimate security, privacy, or legal interests and allows meaningful response where possible.

Review levels

Level 0 — Automated correction

For objective errors such as duplicate charge, failed transfer, or known ledger mismatch.

Level 1 — Owner resolution

The parties resolve through structured communication and documented agreement.

Level 2 — Qualified reviewer

A neutral or role-qualified reviewer decides under published rules.

Level 3 — Review panel

Multiple reviewers address higher-value, conflicted, or precedent-setting disputes.

Level 4 — External forum

Arbitration, court, regulator, card network, payment provider, or other agreed external process.

Reviewer independence

A reviewer must disclose:

financial interest;
prior contribution;
product role;
personal relationship;
competing assignment;
reward eligibility;
other material conflict.

A conflicted reviewer recuses unless all parties knowingly accept limited participation.

Standard of review

The applicable terms define the standard.

Possible standards:

objective completion;
preponderance of evidence;
clear and convincing evidence for serious misconduct;
reasonable reviewer judgment;
payment-network rules;
statutory requirement.

The decision must not imply a stronger standard than was actually used.

Remedies

Possible remedies include:

release payment;
partial payment;
refund;
partial refund;
transfer reversal;
additional revision;
replacement contributor;
campaign extension;
corrected attribution;
credential correction, suspension, or revocation;
public clarification;
access restoration;
access termination;
steward removal or reinstatement;
fee waiver;
reserve release;
account restriction;
referral to external authority.

Refund coordination

A platform merits decision does not always control a payment-network chargeback.

The system must coordinate:

customer refund state;
Stripe dispute state;
transfer reversal;
connected-account negative balance;
product and contributor allocations;
tax adjustment;
ledger correction;
reputation record.

The same amount must not be refunded twice.

Contribution disputes

The reviewer examines:

frozen assignment terms;
acceptance criteria;
submission evidence;
revision requests;
issuer changes;
third-party dependencies;
partial completion;
contributor reliance and committed capacity.

Attribution disputes

The reviewer examines:

pre-registered measurement plan;
metric contract versions;
experiment integrity;
external events;
analysis code;
reviewer conflicts;
reward formula;
uncertainty disclosure.

Reputation disputes

A disputed record should display status without disappearing silently.

Possible status path:

ACTIVE → CHALLENGED → UNDER_REVIEW → CONFIRMED | CORRECTED | SUSPENDED | REVOKED | SUPERSEDED

A correction links to the prior record rather than pretending it never existed, subject to privacy and legal requirements.

Appeal

An appeal is not a complete retry by default.

Appeal grounds may include:

material procedural error;
overlooked evidence;
new evidence not reasonably available earlier;
conflict of interest;
rule misapplication;
disproportionate remedy;
material calculation error.

Appeals receive a different reviewer or panel where practical.

Deadlines

Suggested defaults:

acknowledge filing: one business day;
initial triage: three business days;
ordinary response: seven days;
ordinary decision: fourteen days after complete record;
urgent security action: immediate temporary action with prompt review;
appeal: fourteen days after decision.

Products may adopt different timelines and must publish them.

Communication

Case communication should occur in a recorded channel linked to the case.

The platform SHOULD discourage:

harassment;
public pressure campaigns before response opportunity;
retaliation;
threats to manipulate ratings;
contacting unrelated contributors;
doxxing;
fabricated evidence.

Confidentiality and transparency

Dispute details may be:

private;
shared with affected parties;
shared with reviewers;
summarized publicly;
published as precedent with redaction.

The network should publish aggregate dispute statistics without exposing sensitive parties.

Precedent

Ratified protocol interpretations may become public decision guidance.

A precedent record should include:

issue;
rule version;
reasoning;
outcome;
limits;
whether binding or advisory.

Anti-retaliation

Good-faith reporting, appeal, refusal of overbroad data access, or worker-classification concern must not automatically lower reputation or opportunity access.

Bad-faith abuse is handled separately and requires evidence.

External rights

ANUKA terms must state that platform review does not waive non-waivable rights or prevent reports to regulators or law enforcement.

Any arbitration or class-action waiver requires dedicated legal review and conspicuous agreement.

Metrics

disputes per transaction and assignment;
acknowledgment time;
resolution time;
appeal rate;
reversal rate on appeal;
refund duplication incidents;
payment holds aging;
conflict recusals;
repeat disputes by product;
claimant satisfaction with process;
retaliation reports;
unresolved case backlog.

MVP acceptance criteria

typed dispute filing;
evidence preservation;
temporary measures with expiry;
respondent notice;
reviewer conflict disclosure;
structured decision;
partial-payment and refund support;
Stripe dispute synchronization;
appeal;
reputation status correction;
aggregate reporting;
no automatic reputation penalty for filing.

Sources

Verification record

Sources opened and checked: 2 August 2026
Protocol status: Founding draft
Consumer terms review required: Yes
Arbitration and governing-law review required: Yes