Refunds Policy

How payments work

When a guest submits a request, their card is held (authorised) but NOT charged. The charge only happens when the request is marked as done AND the guest confirms, or after the 30-minute auto-confirm window expires.

Rejected requests

If a host rejects a request, the payment authorisation is cancelled immediately. No charge is made. The same happens when a request is still unanswered when the event ends (whether the host ends it or it closes at its scheduled end time), and when a request is left unanswered for 6 days, at which point it expires. The hold clears within 1-7 business days depending on your bank.

Disputed requests

If a guest believes their request was not fulfilled, they can report an issue within 30 minutes of the host marking it done. The host then has 30 minutes to respond. If the host does not respond, a full refund is issued automatically. If the host contests, the OnCuePay team reviews and resolves the dispute.

Automatic capture

If a guest does not respond to a completion notification within 30 minutes, payment is automatically captured and added to the Host's OnCuePay balance. Guests should confirm or report an issue within the 30-minute window. After this, the payment is considered accepted and cannot be disputed.

How payouts work

Hosts accumulate earnings from completed requests. Payouts are only made to a bank account in the Host's own name, matching the legal name they provided; Hosts can't go live or withdraw until these details are complete. To allow for card clearing and disputes, earnings from a completed request are held before becoming available to withdraw: 7 days for new Hosts, and 3 days for established Hosts. A Host becomes established automatically once they have been active for 30 days, have at least 10 paid requests, have had no refunded disputes or chargebacks in the last 90 days, and their account is in good standing; a Host who stops meeting these conditions returns to the longer hold. Your current hold period is shown on your Earnings page. Available earnings are shown separately from funds still clearing on your Earnings page. A pending withdrawal can be cancelled from the Earnings page until it has been paid. When you request a withdrawal (minimum 50.00 in your account currency), a 15% platform fee is deducted from the withdrawal amount and the net is transferred to your bank account within 1-3 business days. The fee is charged at withdrawal, not per request.

Platform fee

OnCuePay's platform fee (currently 15%) is deducted from the Host's OnCuePay balance at the time of withdrawal, not per transaction. If a transaction is refunded for any reason before the Host withdraws, no fee applies to that transaction. The fee rate in effect at the time of withdrawal applies, regardless of when the underlying request was completed. Refunds are issued in the original transaction currency. OnCuePay does not perform currency conversion; if the Host's payout currency differs from a Guest's billing currency, Stripe handles any FX at its standard rate, which the Guest's bank may surface as a small markup on the original charge.

Processing fee

A card processing fee is added to each guest payment to cover Stripe's transaction costs. The fee is GBP 2.5% + 20p, USD 3.25% + 30¢, EUR 3.25% + €0.25, CAD 5.25% + C$0.30, depending on the host's payout currency. This fee is shown clearly at checkout before the guest confirms payment. The processing fee is separate from OnCuePay's platform fee and covers Stripe's card processing costs, which vary by card type. Rejected or cancelled requests are not charged. If a request is rejected before payment is captured, the card hold is released and no processing fee is collected.

Chargebacks

If a Guest's bank reverses a payment (a chargeback) and OnCuePay loses the chargeback, the payment is removed from the Host's balance and the dispute fee charged by our payment processor (currently £20.00 / $20.00 / €20.00 / C$20.00, in the Host's currency, or the processor's actual fee where it was charged in that currency) is deducted from the Host's next withdrawal. If the chargeback is won, or the payment had already been refunded, no fee is charged.

Refund processing time

When a refund is issued (by rejection, auto-refund, or admin resolution), OnCuePay instructs Stripe to release the payment authorisation or issue a refund immediately. However, the time for the hold to clear or the refund to appear on a guest's bank statement varies by bank and card type. Debit cards: typically 1-5 business days. Credit cards: typically 5-10 business days. Some international cards: up to 14 business days. If a refund has not appeared after 14 days, guests should contact their bank before contacting OnCuePay.

Account deletion and balance

If a Host deletes their OnCuePay account, any remaining balance in their OnCuePay account will be forfeited if not withdrawn before deletion. Hosts are advised to withdraw all earnings before requesting account deletion. Financial transaction records are retained for 7 years as required by HMRC, but are anonymised: personal details are removed while the financial record is preserved.

Contact

For refund queries not resolved through the dispute process, contact us via live chat.