Paid Services & Contract Performance
PROPOSED / DRAFT: PAID SERVICES & CONTRACT PERFORMANCE
POSITION
A business that accepts payment for a defined service must provide the service it promised, perform it in a competent and timely manner, or return the money it did not earn. Payment cannot be treated as guaranteed revenue while performance remains optional.
THE DUTY TO PERFORM OR REFUND
A provider must clearly disclose the service, price, material limits, expected completion date, cancellation terms, and refund terms before accepting payment. Hidden exclusions, post-purchase limitations, and materially different substitute performance do not satisfy the agreement.
After receiving written notice that a paid service was not provided or was materially deficient, the provider has 15 calendar days to do one of the following:
Provide the promised service in full.
Correct the material failure at no additional charge.
Refund the unearned portion of the payment.
A shorter health, safety, insurance, housing, utility, transportation, or emergency deadline controls when delay could threaten life, health, safety, shelter, mobility, or essential property. A provider may not use the 15-day period to delay an action that must lawfully occur sooner.
WRITTEN REASONS & RECORDS
A denial, refusal, partial performance, cancellation, or reduced refund must identify the controlling contract term, material facts, records relied upon, calculation, correction available, and appeal rights. Boilerplate language is not a substitute for an actual decision.
Providers must preserve the agreement, payment record, work record, communications, decision, and material supporting evidence. A provider may not alter the contract after payment or destroy records to defeat a claim.
TRUTH IN SERVICES, DIAGNOSIS, ESTIMATES & REPAIRS
Customers often must rely on a service provider's specialized knowledge. That advantage creates a duty of honesty.
A provider does not have to guarantee an uncertain result. It must truthfully distinguish known facts, professional judgment, estimates, recommendations, and unresolved uncertainty. A business may make a profit. It may not manufacture problems, exaggerate danger, conceal material facts, recommend unnecessary work, or charge for work the customer did not authorize.
Covered Services
This policy applies to consumer-facing inspection, diagnosis, maintenance, repair, installation, construction, technical support, consulting, and similar paid services, including:
Motor vehicles and other equipment.
Home repair and construction.
Plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and appliance services.
Electronics and computer repair.
Pest control and property services.
Other professional or technical services involving specialized knowledge.
Stricter healthcare, insurance, veterinary, legal, financial, licensing, or safety requirements remain controlling where applicable.
Material Truth
A provider may not knowingly make a materially false or misleading statement, omit a material fact, or create false urgency concerning:
The condition of the customer's property.
Whether work is necessary, recommended, optional, or merely preventive.
Whether a condition presents an immediate safety risk.
Whether work is legally, contractually, manufacturer, code, or warranty required.
Tests performed and the results obtained.
Parts, materials, labor, qualifications, warranties, or expected results.
The price, completion date, or consequences of declining the work.
A claim that work is immediately necessary for safety, legal compliance, warranty protection, or prevention of substantial damage must identify the evidence and controlling standard supporting that claim.
Written Diagnosis and Estimate
Before performing individualized or nonroutine work, the provider must give the customer a paper or electronic estimate identifying:
The problem reported by the customer.
The inspection or diagnostic work performed.
The material evidence supporting the diagnosis.
Work considered necessary, optional, or preventive.
Parts and materials, including whether they are new, used, rebuilt, aftermarket, or original equipment.
Estimated labor hours and labor rates.
Diagnostic, inspection, disposal, travel, subcontracting, storage, and other fees.
Taxes and the maximum authorized total.
The expected completion date.
Applicable warranties and material exclusions.
A routine service sold for a clearly displayed fixed price may use the posted price instead of an individualized estimate.
Diagnostic, teardown, reassembly, and storage charges must be disclosed and authorized before they accrue.
If the person recommending work receives a commission, bonus, quota credit, or other direct financial benefit from selling that work, the provider must disclose that incentive.
Customer Authorization
No work may begin and no charge may accrue without the customer's affirmative authorization.
Authorization may be written, electronic, or oral. Oral authorization must be documented with the date, time, person providing authorization, specific work authorized, and maximum price. The provider must send the customer written confirmation.
Blank forms, preselected options, silence, possession of the customer's property, or broad language authorizing any work the provider considers appropriate do not constitute informed authorization.
Additional work requires a revised estimate and new authorization before the additional work begins. The final bill may not exceed the authorized maximum without further approval.
When an unforeseen condition creates an immediate danger and the customer cannot be reached, the provider may take only the minimum reasonable action necessary to stabilize the situation and prevent imminent injury or substantial additional damage. The provider must document the condition, attempted contacts, work performed, and actual cost.
Customer Evidence and Second Opinions
Upon request, the customer must receive:
Diagnostic codes, inspection results, measurements, photographs, or other material evidence reasonably available.
Copies of every estimate and authorization.
An itemized final invoice.
An explanation of any difference between the estimate and final bill.
Replaced parts when lawful and reasonably possible.
When a replaced part cannot be returned because of a manufacturer exchange, warranty requirement, hazardous condition, or another legitimate reason, the provider must explain and document the reason.
A customer may seek an independent second opinion. A provider may not retaliate, fabricate additional charges, void an unrelated warranty, or unreasonably withhold the customer's property because the customer requested another opinion.
Records and requested supporting evidence must be provided within three business days and preserved for at least five years.
Because the provider controls the service records, the provider bears the burden of proving authorization and required disclosures.
Customer Property
After the customer pays all undisputed and properly authorized charges, the provider must return the customer's property within 24 hours.
A provider may not assert a lien, refuse return, or charge storage based on unauthorized work, an unlawful price increase, or a charge that was never disclosed.
Fairness to Honest Providers
A legitimate professional disagreement, unforeseen condition, unsuccessful outcome, or isolated good-faith mistake is not intentional deception.
A provider remains protected when it had a reasonable professional basis for its position, truthfully disclosed uncertainty, preserved the supporting evidence, obtained proper authorization, and corrected an honest mistake promptly.
Customers remain responsible for authorized work that was competently performed. This policy does not permit fabricated complaints, fraudulent chargebacks, refusal to pay for authorized work, or theft of services.
THE 30/30/30 PROCESS
Initial decision: The provider must issue a complete written decision within 30 calendar days after receiving a complete complaint.
Independent appeal: A reviewer who did not issue the first decision must decide a timely appeal within the next 30 calendar days.
Complaint or independent review: The responsible regulator or independent review body must decide the complaint within the following 30 calendar days.
On day 91, administrative remedies are exhausted and the customer may sue without further delay. Immediate judicial relief remains available when waiting would create irreparable harm or threaten life, health, safety, shelter, or essential property.
The clock may not be restarted by transferring the matter, changing its label, assigning a new employee, requesting information already held, or repeatedly requesting immaterial information.
REMEDIES, FINES, CIVIL LIABILITY & CRIMINAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Unauthorized charges are void.
A prevailing customer may recover all unauthorized or unearned payments; the reasonable cost of an independent diagnosis; the reasonable cost of correcting deficient, incomplete, or unnecessary work; property damage; lost use and other actual damages; proven pain and suffering; reasonable attorney fees; and court costs. A court may also order specific performance, correction, an injunction, restitution, or another lawful remedy needed to make the customer whole.
Intent Required for Punitive Penalties
The enhanced civil award, government fine ladder, community service, community confinement, license discipline, and corporate revenue penalties below require a final finding that the conduct was intentional.
Intentional conduct means the person knew that a material statement, diagnosis, recommendation, invoice, authorization record, or charge was false or improper and deliberately used it to obtain money, prevent a refund, conceal wrongdoing, or disadvantage the customer.
A mistake, ordinary negligence, unsuccessful repair, reasonable professional disagreement, or genuinely unforeseen condition does not alone establish intent. An honest error must still be corrected, unearned money must still be refunded, and actual harm caused by deficient work remains compensable.
Customer Civil Recovery
For every intentional violation, each affected customer may recover statutory civil damages equal to the greater of $5,000 or three times the total cost of the affected service, diagnosis, repair, installation, or transaction. This civil recovery is in addition to restitution, proven actual damages, proven pain and suffering, reasonable attorney fees, and court costs.
Individual and Business Fine Ladder
After a final finding that the violation was intentional:
First offense: a minimum fine of $5,000.
Second offense within five years: a minimum fine of $50,000.
Third offense within five years: a minimum fine of $500,000.
Fourth or subsequent offense within five years: a minimum fine of $5 million.
These are minimum fines. A court may impose a greater amount based on the unlawful gain or attempted gain, customer losses, number of victims, duration, prior warnings, concealment, evidence destruction, retaliation, safety risks, and resulting harm.
A common intentional scheme adjudicated in one proceeding counts as one offense for placement on this ladder, but every affected customer retains a separate civil recovery. A later distinct final intentional violation advances the offender to the next tier. A business may not evade repeat-offense status through a name change, reorganization, affiliate, ownership transfer, or replacement of an executive while substantially the same intentional practice continues.
Corporate Systemic Penalties
A violation is systemic when it is built into a policy, contract, software system, algorithm, claims process, pricing system, training program, or management direction, or when management knows of a repeated intentional pattern and deliberately fails to stop it.
A corporation responsible for an intentional systemic violation is subject to a civil penalty based on its annual United States net revenue:
First final systemic finding: 5%.
Second final systemic finding within five years: 10%.
Third final systemic finding within five years: 15%.
Fourth or subsequent final systemic finding within five years: 20%.
Annual United States net revenue means United States gross receipts after legitimate customer refunds, returns, rebates, and taxes collected for government, but before operating expenses, executive compensation, interest, depreciation, management fees, related-party transfers, income taxes, fines, or other deductions that could artificially reduce the penalty.
The corporate penalty does not replace customer restitution, civil damages, attorney fees, court costs, individual fines, license discipline, or criminal accountability for responsible people.
Community Service and Community Confinement
Every person convicted of an intentional offense under this policy must receive at least 40 hours of court-supervised community service. The sentence may increase from community service to a maximum of 20 years in a community prison or other nonviolent community-confinement facility under the MPA corrections policy.
The sentence must become progressively more serious based on repeated intentional violations, money involved, number of victims, duration, abuse of trust or professional authority, falsification, evidence destruction, retaliation, physical injury, safety risks, and efforts to continue after notice.
For large intentional fraud or theft, the approved MPA formula of one year of confinement for every $150,000 intentionally stolen or fraudulently obtained applies, subject to the 20-year maximum under this offense.
A person convicted only of nonviolent service fraud must serve confinement through the MPA nonviolent community-prison system and should not be housed with violent offenders solely because of this conviction. Conduct involving intentional physical harm, violence, or another independently proven violent crime remains subject to the penalties for that separate offense.
Responsible Individuals, Licenses and the Right to Operate
An owner, manager, executive, technician, professional, or employee is individually accountable when that person knowingly committed the deception, directed or approved it, falsified or destroyed evidence, ordered another person to participate, retaliated, or learned of an intentional pattern and deliberately allowed it to continue. Employment by a corporation does not provide immunity. A person is not liable merely because of a job title or supervisory position without proof of knowing participation, direction, concealment, or deliberate failure to stop an established intentional practice.
Repeated intentional violations may result in professional discipline, license or registration suspension or revocation, government debarment, independent compliance monitoring, removal of responsible managers, and temporary or permanent prohibition from providing the affected service. An emergency temporary suspension is permitted only when continued operation presents a documented and immediate threat, followed by a prompt hearing and full due process.
Due Process
Civil penalties require a final finding under the applicable civil burden of proof. Community service, community confinement, or another criminal punishment requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of intentional conduct and every element of the offense. Repetition may be evidence of intent, but repetition alone does not eliminate the government's burden of proof.
Nonprofit and charitable organizations remain reserved for a separate policy and are not assigned the corporate net-revenue penalty by this section.
Core MPA standard: If you diagnose it, prove it. If you quote it, honor it. If the customer did not authorize it, you do not charge for it. Honest work deserves honest payment. A mistake must be corrected. Intentional deception requires restitution, real fines, civil accountability, community service, and, when sufficiently serious or repeated, confinement.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Responsible regulators should publish aggregate complaint volume, decision time, refunds, reversals, systemic findings, penalties, repeat violations, and unresolved orders while protecting private customer information and legitimate trade secrets.
Core MPA standard: If you take the money, perform the service. If you do not earn the money, return it. A paid promise must mean something.
Related policies: Consumer Rights; Insurance Claims, Denials & Bad-Faith Accountability; Tenant Rights & Rental Housing; Right to Timely Government Service.
Status: Proposed / Draft, not yet formally adopted.
Originally published: October 3, 2026.
Last updated: October 3, 2026.
Version: Draft 0.2.