Clawback landed for a campaign I stopped running in October

Had a campaign running August through October last year with a network I'd been with about a year. Ended it, moved on, got paid on time every cycle, nobody said a word.

Yesterday I get an invoice adjustment. Negative $2,340. Reason field says 'quality review - retroactive'. That is the entire explanation. Three months after the last conversion fired and four months after the campaign stopped.

I've never had one land this late. Everything before has come inside the following cycle, occasionally the one after. Is there actually a limit on how far back they can reach, or is it just whatever the contract says and I never read it properly?

Read the contract. Not sarcasm - the window is nearly always written down and nearly always six months.

six months is standard. some say twelve. you agreed to it when you signed up mate

Caveat: I've had three of these and only one of them I'd call fair.

The window in most of the IOs I've signed is 90 to 180 days, so October to March sits inside it more often than not. What is not standard is a reason field that says nothing. A retroactive quality review should arrive with a conversion list - the IDs being reversed and why. Ask for exactly that, in writing, and don't accept a summary.

1. If they produce the list and it's a coherent set - same sub ID, same geo, same few days - it's probably real and the argument is about the amount. 2) If they can't produce it, or the list is a random spread across the whole campaign, they are plugging a hole in their own books with your money, and you should say that in those words.

I got about 40% back once, purely by asking for the list twice and then asking who signed off on it.

wait they can just do that four months later?? that's mental

They can if the terms say so, and the terms usually do. It's worth separating two questions though: whether they are contractually allowed to, and whether you should keep working with someone who does it without documentation.

The second one is the decision that's actually in front of you. A network that reverses with a conversion list attached is doing its job. A network that reverses with a two-word reason field is telling you how it will behave the next time it needs cash in a hurry.

Asked for the list. Got one, eventually.

It's 611 conversions spread across the whole three months and I can't see a pattern in it - different subs, different days, different geos, no clustering anywhere. Which per Marta_K's second option is not a great sign.

Still chasing. Will report back if anything moves, but I'm not expecting it to.