Payment and Quote Terms

Status

Card payments are switched off. Nothing on the platform can take a payment today. This draft describes how payment will work once it is switched on.

Quotes

Dispatch issues a quote for a specific version of a specific request, in US dollars. The quote lists every line, states the requested stay-on-location hours as requested hours, and shows an expiry. Accepting a quote records agreement to that exact version. Accepting does not pay anything.

When a quote stops being valid

A quote stops being valid when it expires, or when the request, the service level, the address, the requested hours, the timing, the rate card or the policies it was bound to change. A replacement quote is issued.

What is charged

The base service fee for the service level chosen, stay-on-location time where it was requested and authorised, additional authorised attempts beyond the four included attempts, an additional person served at the same address on the same visit, court filing handling plus the actual court fees, printing beyond the twenty-five included pages once its tax treatment is confirmed, and documented pass-through costs at actual cost with no mark-up. Four documented attempts are included for the same person at one address unless the written quote says otherwise. Timing figures are targets for the first attempt after Dispatch accepts the request; successful service, an arrival time and court acceptance are never guaranteed. Eligibility depends on territory, timing, documents, address and Dispatch acceptance. Same-day service is only possible where Dispatch confirms availability before the applicable cutoff in writing.

What is never charged

Hidden fees. Automatic tips. Percentage surcharges. Any amount generated automatically from location evidence.

Stay-on-location time

Charged with a two-hour minimum and then in whole fifteen-minute increments. Requested hours are what the client asked for and what is quoted; elapsed time and verified presence are recorded separately and never add a charge. The time billed is the time a person at Dispatch reconciles, not a figure produced by location evidence.

Work that is always quoted separately

Remote travel, skip tracing and hard-to-locate research, coordination outside the approved territory, unusual document handling, holiday work, translation, and international or out-of-state work are quoted in writing before the work starts. Custom-quote work needs an approved client price and an approved server compensation amount recorded before any assignment offer is sent.

Tax

Separately stated process-service labour is not taxed at launch. Any tangible item is stated separately. This position is under review by a qualified California tax adviser and is not tax advice. Billing contact: [not yet supplied: billing contact]. Card statements show [not yet supplied: merchant descriptor] and the merchant of record is [not yet supplied: merchant legal label].

Provisional California tax classification

Process-service labour, attempts, rush and same-day scheduling, presence verification, stay-on-location time, travel labour and the platform fee are treated as non-taxable service charges. Separately sold physical items such as printed copies, binding or media are treated as taxable and cannot be sold until the treatment is confirmed and a rate or tax provider is configured. Parking, tolls, witness fees and court fees are passed through at documented cost and are never silently taxed. No tax rate appears anywhere in the platform. This is a provisional operating position that a qualified California tax adviser must confirm.

How a job is priced and offered

DedicatedServe sets the price a client pays and, separately, the compensation it pays the server for that assignment. Servers do not bid, do not propose amounts and do not negotiate with clients. Dispatch offers an assignment to one qualified server at a fixed compensation; the server may accept or decline, there is no counteroffer, and declining carries no automatic penalty. Dispatch confirms every assignment and nothing is assigned by the system.

One all-in quote

A client is shown one final itemised amount before authorising anything, together with the payment and refund terms. A client never sees a server's compensation or the platform's margin. A server never sees the client's price. DedicatedServe sets these prices as principal in its own engagement with the client; nothing here decides who the seller or merchant of record is for tax purposes, which a qualified California tax adviser must confirm.

Platform revenue

Platform revenue is the difference between the client price and the server's compensation on a fixed-price engagement. It is not a commission deducted from a server's pay and is never described as one. It is never calculated from taxes, court or witness fees, parking, tolls, approved pass-through costs, refunds or chargebacks. An owner-approved, tier-aware margin guardrail is on file: a minimum platform gross revenue per fixed-fee job, a minimum share of eligible client service revenue, and a minimum per billed hour on hourly work. A quote cannot be approved where the server's compensation exceeds eligible client service revenue, where any figure would be negative, or where margin falls below the guardrail without an owner override recorded with a reason, actor and time. A server sees the fixed compensation, reimbursement terms, expected adjustments and expected net before accepting an assignment.

Payouts

Client payment is collected first and held in the platform's payment balance; it is not escrow and it is not insured or guaranteed. A server is paid only after Dispatch verifies completion and required evidence, the client-facing report is ready, no dispute or refund hold is in place, and an owner release command is recorded. Payouts are never scheduled automatically and location evidence never releases money. Whether servers are independent contractors or employees under California law has not been determined and must be reviewed by a qualified California employment lawyer before any payout is released.