Skip to main content

Who Owns What

Prerequisites

Before defining ownership, understand:

TL;DR
  • One throat to choke per problem—not informed, not consulted, one person who feels pain if it fails
  • Stage 1 (under $500K/yr): You check disputes daily, verify deposits weekly, answer processor emails in 24h
  • Stage 2: Hand off "I don't recognize this charge" to support, but you decide disputes
  • Stage 3: Set boundaries, not procedures ("refund under $50 without asking")
  • Escalate early: Chargeback ratio >0.75%, processor warning, anything you're unsure about

Unclear ownership is how chargebacks expire without response and fraud queues pile up.

If you're still finding product-market fit, you don't have an ops problem. You have a survival problem. Come back when payments friction is costing you real money.

The only rule that matters: every problem needs exactly one person who will feel pain if it doesn't get solved. Not "informed." Not "consulted." One person who wakes up at 3am when the alert fires. Everything else is organizational theater.

Stage 1: It's Just You​

You're the company. Maybe you have a cofounder. Your job is simple: don't let anything expire or go unanswered.

The checklist:

  • Check disputes daily (they have deadlines)
  • Verify deposits weekly (make sure you're getting paid)
  • Answer processor emails within 24 hours (silence makes them nervous)

That's it. Don't build dashboards. Don't tune fraud rules. Don't optimize. You're not at the scale where any of that matters.

When this breaks: Around $500K-$1M annual volume, or when payments work takes more than an hour a day. If you're spending real time on this, it's time for Stage 2.

Stage 2: Someone Else Can Do This​

You've hired someone. Support person, ops generalist, doesn't matter. The question is: what can they handle without you?

The key handoff is "I don't recognize this charge." Train them:

  1. Pull the order
  2. Explain what it was for
  3. If customer still insists, escalate to you
  4. Do NOT immediately refund

Immediate refunds train customers to dispute. You want them to call you, not their bank.

Simple ownership:

ProblemWho HandlesEscalates To
Customer questionsSupportYou
Dispute responseYou(nowhere, you're the end)
Refund requestsSupport (under $50)You (over $50)
Processor emailsYou(nowhere)

When this breaks: You're spending more than 5 hours a week on payments personally, or you're the bottleneck on decisions that could be routine.

Stage 3: Dedicated Person​

Someone's job now includes payments or fraud. Partial role or full role, doesn't matter. The shift: you set boundaries, they operate within them.

Boundaries, not procedures:

  • "Refund under $50 without asking me"
  • "Block orders with these 3 signals automatically"
  • "Escalate if customer claims over $200"
  • "Call me if chargeback ratio hits 0.6%"

The goal is that they can handle 90% of situations without you. The 10% that escalates should be genuinely weird or high-stakes.

Weekly check-in (30 min max, can be async):

  • Disputes trending up or down?
  • Any patterns in the queue?
  • Anything weird from the processor?
  • Rules to add, remove, or adjust?

If they're constantly hitting escalation thresholds, either the thresholds are wrong or they need more training. Fix that, don't add more meetings.

Stage 4: Multiple People​

Resist the urge to over-process. More people doesn't mean more structure. It means clearer ownership.

Principles:

  • One throat to choke per problem type
  • Bias toward whoever has context
  • Ship changes and iterate, don't committee them
  • Postmortems, not processes

When disputes spike, ask "what's the top cause?" not "who's responsible?"

If Driven ByOwner
Third-party fraudWhoever owns fraud rules
Friendly fraudSupport + fraud together
Product issuesProduct
Shipping problemsOps
Billing confusionPayments (fix descriptors)

Pick the single biggest driver. Fix it. Then move to the next one.

The dangerous question: If someone asks "Can we get a RACI for this?" it usually means ownership is unclear. Fix the ownership problem. Don't paper over it with a matrix nobody will reference.

The "I Don't Recognize This Charge" Handoff​

This phrase covers five different situations:

  1. Descriptor confusion: Your billing name doesn't match your brand
  2. Forgot: It's been 3 weeks, they genuinely don't remember
  3. Family member: Kid or spouse used the card
  4. Actual fraud: Stolen card, they really didn't do it
  5. Buyer's remorse: They know exactly what it is and want their money back

Support should NOT immediately refund. Pull the order, explain the charge clearly. If the customer insists they didn't order, escalate.

Escalation decides:

  • Confusion → explain better, fix descriptor if pattern emerges
  • Forgot → explain, done
  • Family → explain, maybe refund depending on policy
  • Fraud → refund, investigate signals, flag for detection
  • Abuse → hold the line, document

Document every decision. You're building pattern data for later.

Escalation Triggers​

Escalation is not failure. Under-escalating is how small problems become big ones.

Escalate to founder/leadership:

  • Chargeback ratio exceeds 0.75%
  • Processor sends a warning email
  • Single incident over your threshold (define this: $500? $1,000?)
  • You're not sure what to do

Escalate to legal:

  • Contract disputes with processor
  • Customer mentions lawsuit
  • Regulatory inquiry, subpoena, data breach

When in doubt, escalate. The cost of over-escalating is a 5-minute conversation. The cost of under-escalating can be an account shutdown.

Where This Actually Breaks​

Single points of failure: If one person is the only one who can respond to disputes and they go on vacation, disputes expire. Write down the mechanical steps so anyone can follow them in an emergency.

Ambiguous ownership during growth: You're between stages, nobody's sure who owns what. Name it explicitly, set an end date ("Sarah owns this until we hire"), and survive.

Nobody owns prevention: Someone owns responding to chargebacks, but nobody owns reducing them. Assign the upstream problem, not just the downstream symptom.

Cross-functional blame: Chargebacks spiked. Was it fraud? Product quality? Shipping? Everyone points at everyone else. Pick the single biggest driver, fix that first, then move to the next one.

The Startup Version​

  1. One owner per problem type, not a team
  2. Start with zero process, add only when something breaks twice
  3. Define boundaries, not procedures
  4. Review outcomes, not activities
  5. Iterate weekly (last week's rules might be wrong, that's fine)

You're not building a compliance department. You're trying to lose less money while you figure out the business.