Legal Lead Replacement Policies: What a Fair Guarantee Looks Like

A replacement policy shows whether a lead vendor will stand behind its quality claims. If the vendor trusts its screening, replacing mistakes is inexpensive. If not, it will make the claims process difficult.

You can learn a lot about a vendor by reading this policy and checking for loopholes.

What replacement policies are for

Every lead source produces some percentage of duds: disconnected numbers, prospects who typed a digit wrong, bots that beat a filter, people who selected the wrong case type. Even good screening has a miss rate, which is why fake leads exist across the whole industry.

The policy decides who pays for those failures. A fair policy makes the vendor responsible for data and screening failures while the firm keeps the conversion risk. An unfair policy promises that split in the marketing copy but uses definitions that move the failures back to you.

The three legitimate triggers

False contact information. The number is disconnected, belongs to someone else, or the identity is fabricated. This is the least ambiguous trigger and every credible vendor covers it. The variable is the claim window, which only needs to be long enough for a prompt intake attempt: if your team calls leads within minutes, even a 24-hour window is comfortable.

Profile mismatch. The lead does not match what you agreed to buy: wrong case type, wrong jurisdiction, a matter you explicitly excluded. This trigger only works if the agreement is written. A vendor with no written targeting profile per client cannot have a meaningful mismatch policy, because there is nothing to mismatch against. This is one of the twelve questions worth asking before any purchase.

Duplicates. The vendor sells you a prospect you already own, either from the same vendor last month or through a second funnel the vendor also operates. Vendors with several brands and no cross-brand duplicate checks create this problem repeatedly. That is why exclusivity enforcement and replacement terms belong together.

What a fair policy does not cover

A real prospect, matching your profile, with a viable case, who consulted two firms and hired the other one. Or who went quiet for four months, which in immigration often just means not yet.

The bands worth expecting are in our conversion rate guide.

Where the loopholes hide

Read any policy against these five patterns:

1. The impossible window. The claim period is measured in hours, but the intake process takes days. The guarantee expires before your first call attempt.
2. The undefined term. The policy says "invalid leads will be credited" but never defines "invalid," leaving the vendor to decide. Ask for the trigger list in writing. A refusal gives you the answer.
3. The captive credit. The vendor only provides credit against future purchases and may require an ongoing volume commitment. This forces you to keep buying to use the guarantee.
4. The dispute cap. The policy limits the share of leads you may claim, regardless of actual quality. A cap above the honest miss rate causes no harm, but vendors do not write caps they never expect to use.
5. The verbal policy. The sales call promises generous terms that are absent from the agreement. If a term is not in the contract, it does not exist.

The terms worth requiring

Before the first batch ships, the agreement should name the replacement triggers, claim window, and claims process (a button or email, not a negotiation). It should provide new leads or a refund rather than captive credit, set no dispute cap below plausible miss rates, and use your written targeting profile for mismatch claims.

A vendor that agrees to these terms in five minutes trusts its screening. If it needs to check with a manager, take that as evidence of what the screening is worth.

Our policy

Immileads makes three written commitments. We replace duplicates, false contact information, and leads that do not match your lead profile at no charge when you report them within 24 hours. We do not use captive credit.

We do not replace matching prospects who choose not to hire you. We also put that limit in writing because a clear policy needs to define what it does not cover. You receive the terms with your profile before the first 25-100 lead test batch.

What to read next:

• How to choose an immigration lead vendor puts replacement terms alongside the other five vendor checks.
• Questions to ask lead generation companies gives you a sales-call script that exposes weak terms early.
• How to measure lead quality reveals whether replacements are occasional exceptions or a routine problem.