How disputes work
Who can contest a delivered lead, how long they have, and what happens if you don't answer in time.
A dispute is a buyer telling you a lead it received was bad. Two people can open one: the buyer, from its portal, or you, from the lead's delivery history (the "Open dispute" button next to a sent or delivered delivery). Either way the dispute lands in your Disputes queue as pending until you accept or reject it — or until its deadline passes, at which point LeadMove accepts it for you.
Reasons
The buyer picks one reason, and can add free-text details:
| Reason | Typical meaning |
|---|---|
| Fake number | The phone number is invalid or made up. |
| Unreachable | Contacted repeatedly, no answer. |
| Wrong area | Outside the buyer's coverage. |
| Not qualified | Doesn't meet the criteria the buyer buys on. |
| Duplicate | The buyer already had this contact. |
| Spam | Junk submission. |
| Other | Anything else — the details field carries the explanation. |
The dispute window
The window is the time a buyer has to contest a delivered lead. Two places set it, and the more specific one wins:
- Per buyer — the buyer's Settings → Dispute window, when "use the account default" is unchecked.
- Account default — Settings → General → Dispute window, in hours, owners only. See settings.
With neither set, the window is 48 hours.
The clock starts at delivery. A buyer trying to dispute after it closes is told the deadline has passed. Disputes you open are not bound by it — you can record one a buyer reported by phone long after delivery, and its deadline runs from the moment you open it.
No answer means accepted
A dispute still pending past its deadline is accepted automatically: the lead leaves your revenue and the buyer is compensated — refunded to its balance if it's prepaid, granted a make-good credit if it's invoiced. For a buyer-opened dispute the deadline is the end of the same window that started at delivery — a buyer disputing at hour 47 of a 48-hour window leaves you one hour to answer. The queue badges anything under 12 hours as Expiring soon, so clear the Pending tab daily.
Dispute allowance
The window says how long. The allowance says how often — and it is off for every buyer until you set one.
On a buyer's page, Settings → Disputes → Limit how often this buyer can dispute takes a percentage of the leads that buyer actually received: 10% means it may open one dispute per ten delivered leads, counted over the last 30 days, rolling. Past that, its dispute form is replaced by a sentence telling it how many disputes it has opened out of how many it is allowed, and to contact you if it believes a lead should still be reviewed. Nothing is silent.
Three things worth knowing before you set one:
- It never applies under 10 delivered leads in the window. A percentage of a handful of leads means nothing, and a new buyer must always be able to raise its first dispute.
- Every dispute counts, including the ones you rejected. What the allowance bounds is how often the buyer asks, which is the behaviour it exists for.
- It only binds the buyer. Disputes you open yourself are never blocked, and neither is auto-acceptance — the allowance is about creating disputes, not resolving them.
Blocked attempts are recorded in the activity log and counted on the buyer's Disputes card ("N attempts blocked in the last 30 days"), so you can see a limit that is actually biting.
When to use it, and when not to
Use it for a buyer that disputes reflexively — many requests, few of them upheld. For a buyer whose disputes are mostly accepted, the fix is the routing rule, not the allowance: it is receiving leads it shouldn't be getting, and capping its complaints only hides that.
What disputes do to your revenue
Pending and rejected disputes change nothing. An accepted dispute (by you or automatically) removes that delivery from every revenue figure in the app — dashboard, per-buyer and per-pipeline totals. Free replacement deliveries paid with a credit never count as revenue either.
Quotas work differently: the lead was still ingested, so it stays counted against your monthly lead quota.
Common questions
Can the same lead be disputed twice? Not while a dispute on that delivery is pending or accepted. If you reject one, the buyer can open a new dispute on the same delivery as long as its window is still open.
Am I notified when a buyer opens one? Yes — owners and admins with email notifications on get an email, and the dispute appears in the queue right away. See notifications.
Can a failed delivery be disputed? No. Only deliveries that reached delivered status can be contested — see lead statuses.
If I change the account default, do open disputes move? No. A deadline is fixed when the dispute is created; the new value applies to disputes opened afterwards.
Can a replacement lead be disputed? No — it was free. A lead sent as a replacement for an accepted dispute costs the buyer nothing, so there is nothing to credit back; the buyer sees "sent to you as a replacement" where the dispute form would be, and the "Open dispute" button doesn't appear on it for you either. If a replacement is itself bad, grant a credit from the buyer's page.
Does accepting send the lead back out to another buyer? No. The original lead stays where it is; the buyer is compensated instead — its balance is refunded if it's prepaid, otherwise it gets a credit. That credit is spent on a future lead automatically, or right away on a lead you choose yourself with Send a replacement. See resolving disputes.