Delayed Cash Realization Due to Platform Settlement and Dispute Cycles

$12,000–$20,000/month (cost of over-forecasted revenue leading to operational overspend; downward forecast corrections; + investor communication crisis) • $15,000–$25,000/month (cost of inaccurate planning; potential investor trust loss; + labor spent explaining revenue vs. cash gaps; if severe, may lead to bridge financing at 12%+ cost of capital) • $15,000–$30,000/month (labor spent on manual family account dispute handling; + refund leakage (if refund rate is 10-15% vs. 2-3% for adult accounts, that's $50k–$75k/month in false refunds); + settlement holds; + regulatory fines if COPPA compliance is weak)

Compliance/Legal Counsel receives dispute alerts from app-store or Support team via email; creates manual case in Excel or Jira; investigates by pulling transaction history from Finance records; coordinates with Support Lead to check if player initiated refund request; may require player communication to determine intent; dispute resolution process is entirely manual and context-dependent • Compliance/Legal Counsel receives refund/chargeback request from parent via app-store; manually investigates player account age and purchase history; decides whether to grant refund; processes refund via app-store interface; disputes are tracked in email threads or Slack messages; no systematic record of family account chargeback patterns • Compliance/Legal Counsel tracks disputes in Excel spreadsheet with manual status updates from app-store liaison (email); investigates each dispute via email/calls with player support; maintains paper file for each case; dispute closure confirmation arrives via email weeks after internal resolution; some disputes expire and disappear from tracking