Lead Return Policies: What Is Fair

These are the categories a reasonable vendor credits without argument, because the lead is not the product they sold:

• Disconnected or invalid phone number. The number does not connect or is not in service.
• Wrong number. The person who answers is not the named consumer and has no connection to them.
• Duplicate. The same consumer already delivered to you within a stated window.
• Outside ordered filters. Wrong state, age outside your band, wrong lead type.
• Obviously fake data. Names like test or asdf, nonsense addresses, impossible ages.
• Never submitted anything. The consumer flatly denies any inquiry and has no recollection of the source.
• Deceased.

What should not be creditable, and asking for it marks you as a difficult buyer:

• They did not answer after several attempts
• They were not interested
• They could not afford it
• They did not qualify medically
• They already bought from another agent
• You did not get to them for three days

That second list is the business. A lead is an inquiry, not a sale, and a vendor who credits "not interested" is either lying about their policy or pricing it in somewhere you cannot see. The line is whether the record is what was described, not whether it produced revenue.

A policy that works for both sides usually has these terms:

• Window: 5 to 7 business days from delivery to submit a credit request. Anything under 72 hours is tight for a solo agent.
• Cap: a percentage of the order, commonly 10 to 20 percent. A cap is reasonable; it prevents abuse and lets the vendor price honestly.
• Form of credit: replacement leads, account credit, or cash refund. Replacement is standard. Cash refunds are rare and usually only on prepaid balances.
• Proof: the reason code and, for wrong or disconnected numbers, a call log or dialer record. Reasonable.
• Response time: a stated number of business days for the vendor to decide, commonly 2 to 5.
• Escalation: a named person or process if you disagree.

Ask for the policy as a document before your first order and read the cap and window first. Then ask one calibrating question: what percentage of leads do your buyers typically return? A vendor who says almost none is either selling very clean data or discouraging claims. A vendor who says ten to fifteen percent is being honest about how internet lead data actually behaves.

Also ask whether returns are reviewed by a person or by an automated rule. Automated rules are faster and more consistent. Human review is slower but handles edge cases better.

A generous headline policy can be neutralized entirely by one clause. Look specifically for:

• Sole discretion language. "Credits issued at vendor's sole discretion" means there is no policy, only a mood.
• A 24-hour window. Technically a policy. Practically impossible if you buy on Friday.
• Proof requirements you cannot meet. Requiring a call recording when you do not record, or three timestamped attempts within the return window itself.
• Credits that expire. Replacement credits usable only within 30 days, on a new order, above a minimum spend.
• Caps stated per month rather than per order. A 10 percent monthly cap on a bad week means you eat the rest.
• Exclusions for the actual failure modes. No credits on aged, no credits on discounted blocks, no credits during promotional pricing.
• Automatic waiver on dispute. Language voiding your credits if you file a chargeback with your card issuer.
• Requiring you to prove a negative, such as documenting that a consumer never submitted a form.

One more to watch: a clause letting the vendor substitute a lead from a different geography or lead type as a replacement. A credit that pays you in leads you cannot use is not a credit.

If the policy is not in a written document you can keep, treat it as nonexistent, no matter how good the phone call was.

Vendors credit organized buyers and stall disorganized ones. Make it trivially easy to approve your request.

• Submit in batches, once or twice a week, not one at a time
• Use their reason codes, exactly as written in the policy
• Include lead ID, delivery timestamp, attempt log, and outcome for each record
• Keep it factual. No commentary on lead quality generally, no threats
• Track submitted, approved, denied, and pending in your own sheet
• Follow up once at the stated response deadline, then escalate

Do not exceed your cap deliberately and do not pad. Submitting marginal claims gets your legitimate ones scrutinized, and vendors talk to each other. A buyer with a clean 8 percent return rate and precise documentation gets fast approvals for years.

Watch your own approval rate over time. If a vendor approved 90 percent of your claims in month one and 40 percent in month five with the same documentation and the same reasons, the relationship is changing. That trend is often the earliest sign that a vendor's data quality has slipped and they are managing it through the credit process rather than at the source.

Your return rate is a data quality measurement independent of your sales ability, which makes it one of the most useful numbers you track.

Rough interpretation for fresh internet leads:

• Under 5 percent: clean data, or you are under-claiming
• 5 to 12 percent: normal for internet-sourced leads
• 12 to 20 percent: noticeably weak, worth a conversation with the vendor
• Over 20 percent: the source has a problem, and even with credits you are wasting dial time

Aged leads run much higher and no credit policy will cover it, which is part of why they are cheap. Direct mail responses run very low, since a physical card is hard to fake.

Remember that credits do not refund your time. If 20 percent of a file is bad numbers and every credit is honored, you still spent the hours discovering it, and the replacements come from the same source. A high return rate that is fully credited is still a reason to change vendors.

Track return rate by vendor, by month, and by lead type. A rise in one lead type only usually means the vendor added a new traffic source for that vertical. Ask them directly. Vendors who answer that question honestly are the ones worth staying with.

Return terms are more negotiable than price, especially once you have a delivery history. Things worth asking for:

• A longer window, 10 business days instead of 5, if you buy in weekly batches
• A higher cap during your first order, as a good-faith test term
• Cash credit on your prepaid balance rather than replacement leads only
• Automatic credit for disconnected numbers detected by their own validation
• A dedupe guarantee against your own prior purchases, with automatic credit on failure

Trade something real for it. Volume commitment, a longer term, prepayment, or flexibility on geography all have value to a vendor and cost you little if you were going to do them anyway.

Get any negotiated term added to the written order or in an email that references the order number. A verbal side agreement with a salesperson evaporates when that person leaves, and in this industry that person leaves often. The email is what survives, and it is what you will need in month seven when someone new tells you the policy has always been 48 hours.