10/01/2026
🚨🚨A little booking PSA because apparently this needs to be said:
A new client booked four full-day appointments with Greg a few months ago to work on a leg sleeve.
Full-day appointments with Greg Madole require a $200 deposit per day, paid at the time of booking and applied toward the tattoo the day of your appointment.
I made our deposit policy very clear when these appointments were booked.
I emailed him invoices for each deposit, meaning he had to knowingly open the invoice, manually enter his own card information, and submit the payment himself. These were not random charges we ran without his knowledge.
We actually only charged deposits for three of the four days. I left the fourth day without a deposit in case Greg was able to finish the project in three sessions and that final appointment wasn’t needed.
I also allowed him to reschedule one of those appointments once without requiring another deposit, even though our policy would normally require a new deposit when an appointment is moved under those circumstances.
So we had already been more than flexible.
Then, with his first appointment approaching, he disputed all three deposits with his bank and reported them as fraudulent.
When I reached out, he told me he didn’t realize the charges were his tattoo deposits and that he still wanted his appointments.
Our payment processor confirmed that we can dispute the chargebacks by submitting our invoices, booking conversations, payment records, and documentation showing that these payments were knowingly authorized.
Instead, we gave him another option.
Because we were no longer comfortable accepting card payments from him, we told him he could keep his appointments if he came into the shop within 7 days, repaid the deposits in cash, and covered the chargeback fees his disputes caused us.
He said he still wanted his appointments and agreed to come pay us back in cash on Monday or Tuesday.
It has now been 8 days, 3 days passed when he said he'd stop by. He never came in. I even reached out again this morning as a courtesy and received no response.
Greg was even willing to eat the original processing fees and only ask that the actual deposits and chargeback fees be repaid.
Greg also had a new client this week that had booked a full day session, never paid his deposit and no call no showed.
From here on out we are going to have to be very firm on our deposit policy.
So let’s make our policy crystal clear:
Deposits are due immediately upon booking. Deposits are non-refundable. Your deposit is applied toward the cost of your tattoo on the day of your appointment.
A chargeback is not a loophole around our deposit policy.
The same goes for completed tattoo services. You cannot receive a service, walk out of the shop, and then falsely tell your bank that the transaction was unauthorized just to get your money back.
We keep booking records, invoices, payment documentation, messages, and appointment history.
We also have cameras inside and outside of the shop documenting who enters, who receives services, and when.
If someone knowingly files a false fraud claim on a legitimate deposit or a service they actually received, we have the documentation to dispute it.
If you genuinely do not recognize a charge from Inkery, message me. I am always happy to look it up and explain exactly what it was for.
But falsely reporting a legitimate deposit or completed service as fraud is not a cancellation policy, and it is not a refund policy.
As for this particular client. Greg has chosen to let him keep the deposits instead of fighting them, but he is no longer welcome at Inkery.
