What If a Follower Pays and You Can't Deliver?

If a follower pays and you can't deliver, decline and refund the request as soon as you know you can't fulfill it — don't let it sit unanswered. The follower gets their money back, you owe nothing further on that order, and acting quickly is what keeps an honest capacity problem from turning into a card dispute.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate (pricing). Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

Undeliverable paid requests happen more often than creators expect: you accept a custom request or Personalized Video, then get sick, get overbooked, or realize the request needs a skill or software you don't actually have. The same thing happens with a Paid Question that falls outside what you can answer responsibly. The remedy is identical in all three cases — decline and refund rather than ghost the order or force out low-quality work to avoid the conversation. Tips require no reply and no delivery, while Goals fund a named target with nothing to ship: Brillay’s Tips page says tips “require nothing in return” (Tips), and Brillay’s Goals page describes contributions as “direct cash toward your goal.”

Can you refuse a request after a follower already paid?

Yes. A follower paying upfront does not obligate you to accept work you cannot do; if you decline, the request closes and the follower keeps their money — for the follower's side, see what happens if you pay a creator and they don't deliver. (Brillay how-it-works FAQ, "What if I get a request I don't want to fulfill?")

Brillay's own purchases policy is the authority on what the follower gets back. When a creator approves a full refund, "the approved amount is returned through Stripe to the original payment method" and "Brillay reverses the corresponding platform fee," while "Stripe's original processing fee may remain the creator's responsibility". Once that full refund is approved, nothing further is owed to the follower on that order.

Declining before delivery is a different situation from a follower simply disliking a finished result. Once a service has been delivered, the question becomes "was this correct," which is covered in how to Handle Refunds for Custom Work. "I can't deliver" is a pre-delivery capacity or scope problem — the video, answer, or file was never produced — and the clean remedy is a straightforward decline and refund rather than a negotiated resolution.

How do you actually decline and refund a request?

Open the paid order on Brillay and use the decline-and-refund action, available on Custom Work, Personalized Videos, and Paid Questions.

The five-step version:

1. Open the order in your Brillay creator inbox as soon as you know you'll decline it, and before the delivery time you promised runs out.
2. Use the decline-and-refund action on that order. The action is available on Custom Work, Personalized Videos, and Paid Questions.
3. A long explanation isn't owed.
4. Stripe's refund documentation says a customer sees the credit approximately 5–10 business days after the refund is submitted, depending on the bank (Stripe refund documentation).
5. Edit the listing so the same undeliverable request can't be ordered again.

Fee mechanics are worth checking before you quote the follower a number. Brillay's purchases policy states that on a full refund "Brillay reverses the corresponding platform fee," and that on a partial refund "Brillay proportionally reverses its platform fee". Stripe's processing fee behaves differently: Stripe's refund documentation states, "There are no fees to refund a charge, but the fees from the original charge aren't returned". Stripe's United States pricing page lists that original processing fee as 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card transaction (Stripe pricing, United States), so on a refunded $50 order that is roughly $1.75 the creator does not get back.

What if you already started the work?

Starting the work does not change the right answer. When a creator cannot finish a custom request or Personalized Video, a full refund is still the recommended default, because a half-written review or an unfinished Personalized Video is not the deliverable the follower bought. Brillay's policy permits a partial refund as well, but permitted and correct are different things.

Platform-allowed and recommended default are worth separating clearly. Brillay's purchases policy lists "issue a partial refund" and "issue a full refund" as separate options the creator may choose, and it states that on a partial refund "Brillay proportionally reverses its platform fee" and "retains a platform fee only on the portion of the sale that remains retained". So a partial refund is allowed on any order; the recommendation on this page is narrower — refund in full when the follower received nothing usable, and reserve partial refunds for the case where the follower explicitly agrees to keep the partial work.

A follower-initiated cancellation is the one genuinely different case — that's when the follower backs out of a request you were actively completing, not when you're the one unable to finish. See cancellation Fees for Custom Work, Explained for how that scenario is typically handled. A custom request carries a creator-set "price and delivery time", and Brillay's product caps that delivery promise for Personalized Videos and Custom Work at up to 5 days (Brillay product limit). If you are running out of time, deliver before your set deadline or decline the request rather than let it run past the promised window.

How fast do you actually need to move?

Decline and refund as soon as you know you cannot deliver, and always inside the delivery time you promised the follower — waiting for the follower to ask is the mistake. U.S. mail-order consumer-protection rules follow the same logic: notify the buyer promptly and, absent the buyer's consent to a delay, cancel the order and refund the money.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule sets a 30-day default shipment window when a seller makes no specific shipment representation (FTC business guide to the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule). Once a covered order is cancelled and the buyer paid by cash, check, money order, or third-party credit, the FTC requires the seller to refund the correct amount within seven working days (FTC business guide to the Mail).

"For backorders, the Rule provides only two ways of responding to a properly completed order for mail, Internet, or telephone order merchandise: obtain the customer's agreement to delayed shipment or provide a full and prompt refund." — U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Business Guide to the FTC's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule (ftc.gov)

That FTC rule is written around shipped merchandise and does not govern paid interactions on Brillay. The underlying principle still translates: tell the buyer promptly, then refund rather than go silent — on Brillay's much shorter, hours-not-weeks delivery time windows.

What happens if you never respond or refund at all?

An ignored paid order does not quietly disappear — it usually ends with the follower escalating to their card issuer instead of coming back to the creator. Under the Truth in Lending Act's implementing regulation, a cardholder may dispute a charge for goods or services that were never provided, and the issuer then investigates the merchant directly. For the broader liability question beyond Stripe fees and dispute rates, see what happens legally if you don't deliver a paid request.

The dispute window is long enough that a forgotten order can resurface weeks later: Regulation Z requires a cardholder's billing error notice to reach the creditor no later than 60 days after the creditor transmitted the first periodic statement showing the disputed charge (CFPB, Regulation Z §1026.13(b)(1)).

"The creditor shall comply with the appropriate resolution procedures.. within 2 complete billing cycles (but in no event later than 90 days) after receiving a billing error notice." — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Regulation Z §1026.13 (consumerfinance.gov)

Once a dispute is filed, the creator has largely lost control of the outcome, because the issuer decides on evidence rather than on any explanation given to the follower directly. Stripe's US pricing page lists a $15.00 dispute received fee for each dispute a merchant receives. Stripe's dispute documentation states: "Unless otherwise stated in your Stripe contract, we never return the dispute received fee" — so winning a dispute does not get the $15.00 dispute received fee back (Stripe, "How disputes work").

Two details keep the Stripe dispute received fee from being misquoted. First, a second charge exists: Stripe's US pricing page lists a $15.00 dispute countered fee for each dispute answered manually, and Stripe's documentation says that countered fee is returned when the merchant wins. Second, the amount is regional, not universal: Stripe's eurozone pricing page lists a €20.00 dispute received fee and a €20.00 dispute countered fee rather than the US $15.00. Declining and refunding proactively avoids all of those charges, in every region.

Is a decline-and-refund a refund or a chargeback, and does the difference matter?

Declining and refunding a Brillay order is a refund, not a chargeback, and the distinction matters for who controls the outcome. A refund is something the creator initiates voluntarily before delivering; a chargeback — the card networks call it a dispute — is initiated by the follower's bank after the fact, and the network decides the result.

Visa's public rules apply dispute time limits of up to 120 calendar days for many dispute conditions, with the exact starting point varying by dispute reason (Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules). Visa's own cardholder guidance repeats that figure, telling consumers to make a chargeback claim within 120 days. A proactive refund usually closes the matter before a follower has any reason to open a dispute at all, which is simpler for both sides than waiting to see whether one gets filed.

Can declining requests too often hurt your account?

An occasional honest decline for a request outside your ability is normal and expected on Brillay. What matters is the pattern: repeatedly accepting requests you cannot fulfill, leaving paid orders unanswered, or refunding only after every deadline signals that your listed price, delivery time, or scope does not match what you can actually deliver.

Voluntary refunds and card disputes are counted differently, and disputes are the ones that carry a hard threshold. Stripe's documentation instructs merchants to keep their dispute rate below 0.75% of charges to stay out of card network monitoring programs (Stripe, "Measuring disputes"). Ghosting undeliverable orders is the fastest way for a small creator to push that rate up.

The fix isn't to stop declining — it's to price and scope your custom request or Personalized Video listing so declines become rare. If one request type (a certain file format, a certain topic, a same-day delivery time) keeps forcing declines, remove or restrict that option from the listing rather than repeatedly accepting and then walking it back after a follower has already paid.

How do you prevent this from happening again?

Prevent repeat "can't deliver" situations by narrowing your listing to exactly what you can reliably produce, and by setting a delivery time you can hit on a busy week rather than on your best week. Build slack into the promise, write exclusions into the listing itself, and pause new requests when your queue is already full.

A Paid Question is the lowest-risk offer here, since it's one typed question and one written reply — the main reason to decline a question is that it falls outside what you're willing to answer, which you can do just as cleanly. Raising the price is a second lever when demand outruns your capacity. See Brillay's policy on purchases and refunds for the platform-level terms that apply to every paid order.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about declining and refunding an undeliverable Brillay order cluster around four things: what happens to the platform fee, whether a partial refund is allowed, how long the money takes to reach the follower, and what to do if the follower disputes the charge first. Short answers follow.

Do I lose the Brillay platform fee if I refund a request I can't deliver?

No — Brillay's purchases policy states that when a creator approves a full refund, "Brillay reverses the corresponding platform fee," and that a partial refund reverses the platform fee proportionally. Stripe's processing fee on the original charge is a separate matter: "the fees from the original charge aren't returned" by a refund.

Can I offer a partial refund instead of a full one if I started but couldn't finish?

Yes — a partial refund is explicitly permitted. Brillay's purchases policy lists "issue a partial refund" among the responses a creator may choose. Permitted is not the same as recommended: a full refund is the cleaner default when the follower never received the thing they paid for, and partial credit for unfinished work is a goodwill option a follower is not required to accept.

How long does the refund take to reach the follower?

Stripe submits a card refund to the bank or issuer right away, but Stripe's documentation says the customer sees the credit approximately 5–10 business days later, depending on the bank. Tell the follower that timeline so a pending refund isn't mistaken for no refund at all.

Does declining a Paid Question work the same way as declining a custom request?

Yes — the decline-and-refund action is available on Paid Questions the same as on Custom Work and Personalized Videos.

What if the follower disputes the charge before I get a chance to refund?

If a dispute has already been filed, contact Brillay support for the next step rather than looking for a separate Stripe dashboard. Brillay's policy assigns that response to the creator: "The creator is responsible for responding to the dispute and submitting relevant evidence".

Create your free Brillay page and set up the decline-and-refund option before you ever need it.