Deposits and refunds

Refunds

Owners and managers refund from the booking's page. Card refunds go back through your Stripe account and show as pending until Stripe confirms them. Cash, check, or bank payments are recorded as returned. Each refund needs a reason, and it is limited to what the customer overpaid: to refund part of a paid order, lower the order first. If one payment isn't enough, the refund is split across payments, newest first.

Deposits are released or retained from the booking once it is returned. Release gives the deposit back, in full or in part. Retain keeps it against what the customer still owes, and no card is charged.

Refunds made directly in your Stripe Dashboard still show up in OnTote. The money returns to the customer's card on Stripe's normal timeline, typically five to ten business days.

The refund does not change the order's status in OnTote. If the rental isn't happening, release the hold as well, so the totes go back into availability: Cancelling or changing a booking.

What a refund costs you

Nothing on the OnTote side. We take no fee out of a payment, so there is no fee sitting inside a refunded charge to reclaim — the amount you refund is the amount your customer paid. Stripe's own processing fee on the original charge is Stripe's to decide on; check their refund policy for your account. See How OnTote billing works.

Disputes and chargebacks

Disputes land in your Stripe Dashboard and are yours to respond to. Two things in OnTote are worth attaching as evidence:

• The rental agreement snapshot on the order: the exact text the customer accepted at checkout, not your current terms.
• The tote history for the totes on that order, which records what condition each one came back in and when. See Tote history.

Deposits

Checkout can charge the security deposit. When it does, that amount is held, and it is released or retained from the booking once it is returned. A deposit is not a hold placed on the customer's card.

The per-customer Security Deposit setting on a customer record (none, percentage, or fixed) sets that amount. See Rental policies and deposits.

What customers should know

A customer asking you about "a hold on my card" is describing a normal card authorization from their bank, not an OnTote deposit. It drops off on its own, usually within a few days.