Appeals and fraud concerns
Two flows keep the trust system fair, and they are the only two places where you actively push back on something:
- Appealing lets you contest a penalty on your own record that you believe is wrong.
- Raising a fraud concern lets you report a paid deal where the other side did not deliver honestly.
Both end with a human decision. Automated systems propose; people decide.
If the mark is on your record, you appeal. If the problem is with someone else's delivery on a placement you paid for, you raise a concern. If your booking simply has not started yet and you have changed your mind, you do not need either — cancel it instead.
Part 1 — Appealing a penalty on your record
If an entry on your reliability ledger should not be there, appeal it. Every appeal is read by the Onflow Ads team.
When you can appeal
All three must be true:
- The entry is a penalty — a negative change. Positive credits, clean-streak recoveries and restorations are not appealable, and the interface does not offer an Appeal button on them.
- It still stands. A penalty already tagged Reversed has nothing left to appeal.
- It is not already under appeal. While the team is reviewing one appeal, you cannot submit another for the same entry.
There is no deadline on appealing a penalty. Your ledger shows your most recent score events, so appeal from the entry itself while it is visible.
Steps
- Sign in and open onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/reliability.
- Scroll to Your ledger at the bottom of the page. Every change to your score is listed with its amount, a plain-language label, the date, and the score you were left on.
- Find the penalty and click its Appeal button.
- A prompt opens, headed with the penalty's own label and reading: "Briefly, why do you think this penalty is wrong? Our team reviews every appeal:" Type your explanation — up to 500 characters — and confirm.
- The button changes to Sending…, then you see: "Appeal submitted — our team will review it."
- The entry now carries an Appeal under review tag in place of its Appeal button.
What to write
Reviewers are deciding a factual question: did the thing the penalty describes actually happen, and was it your doing? Short, specific and checkable beats long and indignant.
Useful:
- The post link, if the penalty says a post came down and it did not
- The date and time something happened, and what you were told at the time
- Who else was involved and what they confirmed
- The cause, if it was outside your control — a platform outage, an account takeover, a channel migration
Not useful: a general statement that the score is unfair, or an argument about a different entry.
Outcomes
| Outcome | What happens |
|---|---|
| Overturned — not at fault | The exact points are restored, to the cent, as if the penalty never happened. If the incident also placed a hold on your wallet, that is lifted in the same step. A genuine restore can even carry you back above the 8.0 recovery ceiling, because it returns standing you had already earned. Your ledger shows the original entry tagged Reversed, plus a restoring entry labelled Restored — not at fault. |
| Forgiven — honest mistake | The team confirms the event happened but was a genuine mistake rather than malpractice. The points come back the same way, the entry is tagged Reversed, and the forgiven mark stops slowing your clean-streak healing. Forgiveness is deliberately bounded so it cannot be farmed by repeat offenders. |
| Dismissed | The penalty stands. You are notified that your appeal was reviewed and the penalty stands. |
Whatever the outcome, you see it on the same ledger.
Messages you might see
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Tell us briefly why you think this penalty is wrong." | You submitted an empty reason — the field is required |
| "That isn't a penalty you can appeal." | The entry is a credit, a recovery or a restoration, not a penalty |
| "That penalty was already reversed — nothing to appeal." | It has already been overturned or forgiven |
| "You've already appealed this — our team will review it." | An appeal on this entry is already in the queue |
| "That event isn't on your record." | The entry does not belong to your account |
Rules and edge cases
- You can never undo a ledgered penalty yourself. Appealing is how you ask a human reviewer to. That is by design — it is what makes the ledger trustworthy for everyone else too.
- Appealing does not pause anything. Your score, your standing and your gates stay exactly as they are while the appeal is reviewed.
- One appeal per entry. If a single incident produced two entries, appeal each one separately.
- An appeal is not a support ticket. If you also need something fixed urgently — a held payout, a blocked withdrawal — email support in parallel.
- Your ledger shows recent history, not all of it. If the entry you want has scrolled out of view, contact support with the date and the amount.
Part 2 — Raising a fraud concern (advertisers)
If you paid for a placement and something went wrong — the post was never published, was removed early, was altered, or ran in the wrong place — raise a concern from your orders page. The owner's payout is frozen while the team investigates, so the money cannot walk away mid-review.
Before you start
- The ad must have been posted. You can only raise a concern once the owner has actually published. If nothing has been posted yet and the booking has not gone live, cancel it instead.
- There is a window. A concern can be raised for a limited period after the post is published — after that the window closes and the booking is final. The exact window is enforced when you submit.
- A concern that does not stand costs you. A rejected concern is a −0.50 reliability penalty on your own record, and a repeated pattern of rejected concerns costs more. The interface warns you twice before you commit. A genuine concern is always safe.
Steps
- Sign in and open your orders at onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/paid-promotion/orders.
- Find the order and expand it. Among the action chips you will see Open a dispute, followed by your plan's resolution promise — either a published target such as 48h SLA, or queue-ordered if your plan does not include one.
- Click it. The concern form opens, headed: "Raise a fraud concern — held funds stay frozen while we investigate."
- Read the warning shown in the form: "If our review finds this concern doesn't stand, it costs you −0.5 reliability (a pattern of rejected concerns costs more). A genuine concern is always safe — this only affects false or unfounded ones."
- Pick a reason chip. The four options are:
- The post was never published
- It was deleted early
- The content was altered
- Wrong channel or audience
- Optionally add detail in the note box — "Add any detail that helps us investigate (optional)…". The reason and note are submitted together, up to 1,000 characters.
- Click Submit concern. A confirmation asks: "Raise this concern? If our review finds it doesn't stand, it costs you −0.5 reliability (a pattern of rejected concerns costs more). A genuine concern is always safe." Confirm to file it.
- The button reads Filing…, then you see a confirmation that the concern was filed and, where your plan includes one, the resolution target in hours.
What happens the moment you file
All of this is automatic:
- The order shows a Dispute pill with its status. While it is open, the pill counts down to your plan's resolution target, or reads in the review queue if your plan has no published target.
- The owner's payout on that booking is held: "A fraud concern on this booking is under review — the payout is on hold until our team resolves it."
- A hold is placed on the owner's wallet for the duration of the review, and their account moves to Under Review — see Account standing.
- The owner is notified with "A fraud concern was raised", telling them an advertiser raised a concern about their post and that their payout is on hold while the team reviews it.
- The platform's own evidence is frozen at that moment: what the delivery monitor measured, the delivery figures, and the proof-capture trail. Neither side can change the record after the fact.
Outcomes
| Outcome | What happens |
|---|---|
| Concern upheld | The owner takes the heaviest reliability penalty on the platform, −2.00, forfeits their good-faith stake where one was taken, and you are made whole under the Refund Policy — a re-run, a credit or a refund. The wallet hold on the owner lifts. |
| Concern rejected | The claim did not hold up. The hold lifts and the owner's payout releases normally. You take a −0.50 reliability penalty for a concern that did not stand, and a repeated pattern of rejected concerns costs more. |
Both outcomes end the investigation and lift the owner's hold in the same step, so a cleared owner is unfrozen the moment the concern is decided.
Messages you might see
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "You can raise a concern once the owner has posted your ad." | Nothing has been published yet — cancel the booking instead |
| "A concern on this booking is already under review." | One is already open on this order; wait for it to resolve |
| "The window to raise a concern on this booking has closed." | Too much time has passed since publication |
| "Tell us what went wrong so we can investigate." | You submitted with no reason chip and no note |
| "Too many attempts. Please wait a minute and try again." | You have hit the rate limit — wait and retry |
If you are the one accused
- Your reliability page shows Under Review instead of your tier. Your score is hidden — it cannot be quoted against you before anything is proven — and it stops auto-healing until the review resolves. The concern moves your score only if it is upheld, so an unresolved accusation is never used against you.
- Withdrawals and payout claims pause, and you cannot start new deals on any surface. Anything already in flight finishes normally.
- AI generation is off for the duration.
- If the review finds you were not at fault, everything is restored — score, hold, all of it — exactly as before.
- If a penalty does land and you believe it is wrong, you can still appeal it from your ledger.
Full detail on what the state blocks and how it ends: Account standing.
Before disputing, consider cancelling
A dispute is for a placement that ran badly. If the placement has not run yet, cancelling is the right tool and it is faster:
- Still awaiting the owner's acceptance? Cancel for a full, immediate refund to your wallet, with no fee and no effect on your record.
- Accepted but not yet live? You can still cancel, but a late-cancellation fee goes to the owner as compensation for the committed slot, and you take an "Abandoned a deal you started" reliability penalty that doubles on a repeat pattern. The Cancel booking chip names the fee percentage, and arming it shows the exact refund and fee before you commit.
- Already live? Neither cancelling nor changing your mind is possible — "This ad is already live — it can no longer be cancelled." If it delivered badly, that is when a concern is the right tool.
Confirming a placement from your orders page releases payment to the owner immediately and cannot be undone from the interface. Only confirm once you have checked the post is live, in the right channel and unaltered — and if it is not, use the concern flow instead of confirming.
Frequently asked questions
Does raising a concern cost me anything if I am right?
No. Only a concern that is reviewed and found not to stand costs you −0.50. A genuine concern, even one that turns out to be a misunderstanding of the facts, is what the system is for.
Can I raise a second concern on the same booking?
Not while one is open. Once a concern has been resolved, the booking is decided — if you believe the decision was wrong, contact support with the order reference rather than filing again.
How long does a review take?
Some plans include a published resolution target — 48 hours at Elite, 24 hours at the top rungs — which is shown on the dispute chip and counted down on the order. Plans without one are resolved in queue order and the order says so. See Comparing the tiers.
The monitor already flagged my placement. Do I still need to raise a concern?
Not necessarily. A monitor flag already holds the owner's payout and notifies you. On plans that include Verified Delivery Insurance the refund happens automatically with no dispute at all. On other plans, raising a concern is how you get the held money back. See Fraud and bot protection.
I confirmed a placement and then found a problem. Can I undo it?
Not from the interface — confirming releases the payment immediately. If a genuine problem surfaces afterwards, email support@onflowads.com with your order reference.
Will appealing a penalty make things worse if I lose?
No. A dismissed appeal leaves your record exactly as it was. There is no penalty for appealing in good faith.
Can an owner raise a concern about an advertiser?
The fraud-concern flow described here is the advertiser's tool for a placement that failed. If an advertiser has behaved badly toward you, contact support@onflowads.com with the order reference — advertiser-side misconduct, including abandoned bookings and chargeback fraud, carries its own reliability penalties.
Need help mid-dispute?
Email support@onflowads.com or use the contact form with your order reference. Evidence helps: links, screenshots and dates make reviews faster and fairer for both sides.
Next: Trust and safety steps back and shows the whole system these two flows sit inside — escrow, delivery proof, cancellation and moderation, from booking to payout.