The complaint arrives in one of four forms: I was charged and did not charge, I charged and was charged twice, the amount is wrong, or it stopped and I do not know why. In every case the person answering needs the same thing — the complete record of one session — and in most support setups they do not have it.
What one session must carry
- Meter start and meter stop, as reported by the charger, stored permanently.
- The tariff as it was when the session started, snapshotted onto the session — not a reference to a tariff that may since have changed.
- The payment reference, and its current state: authorised, captured, failed, refunded.
- The stop reason the charger gave, in its own words, alongside your normalised version of it.
- The connector, the driver identity and the authorisation method used.
With those five, every one of the four complaints is answerable from a single screen. Without them, each becomes an investigation involving a payment gateway dashboard, a log search and an apology.
The four complaints, answered
| Complaint | Check first | Usual cause |
|---|---|---|
| Charged but did not charge | Meter delta | Vehicle refused; a hold was placed and never released |
| Charged twice | Payment references on the session | A retried capture, or two sessions where the driver saw one |
| Amount is wrong | Tariff snapshot and meter delta | A tariff changed mid-day, or an idle fee the driver did not expect |
| Stopped for no reason | Stop reason and the message log | Vehicle-initiated stop, which the driver experiences as a charger fault |
The last row is worth dwelling on. A large share of "the charger stopped" complaints are the vehicle stopping — a full battery, a thermal limit, a scheduled charge ending. The charger recorded it correctly. The driver has no way to know that, and neither does your support agent unless the stop reason is on the screen in front of them.
Refund fast, record why
Where the record shows the driver is right, refund immediately and from the session record so the reason is captured with the money. Where it shows they are not, explain with the numbers — energy delivered, rate applied, time started — rather than asserting the system is correct.
Give the driver the receipt before they ask
A receipt that shows energy, rate, duration, tax and total ends most disputes before they are raised. It is the cheapest support intervention available, and it is the one most consistently skipped.