Guide
Last updated October 7, 2026
There's a real temptation, once you've decided to write a complaint at all, to ask for everything you can think of. A full refund, a goodwill credit, reimbursement for your time, maybe an apology on letterhead. It feels satisfying to write. It's also one of the fastest ways to get your letter dismissed as unreasonable before anyone actually reads your argument.
The size of a reasonable demand tracks how clearly the company is at fault and how much it actually cost you, not how annoyed you are. A delayed order that still arrived usable is a different situation than a product that broke on first use, which is different again from a service that was paid for and never delivered. Before you decide what to ask for, write down in one sentence what went wrong and what it cost you. That sentence is your anchor. If your ask doesn't follow from it, a reader will notice the gap even if they can't name it.
A demand that's obviously padded gives the reader an easy reason to push back on the whole letter, not just the inflated part. It also signals that you haven't thought carefully about what's fair, which makes everything else you've written easier to discount. The person reading your complaint has probably seen dozens of letters that overreach. The ones that get approved quickly tend to be the ones where the ask is specific and the reasoning behind it is obvious.
That doesn't mean you should underask out of politeness either. If a flight delay cost you a missed connection, a hotel night, and a day of work, say so and price it accordingly. The goal isn't modesty. It's that every dollar you ask for should be traceable to something that actually happened.
This is exactly what DraftMyComplaints' compensation slider is for: a straightforward "Reasonable" setting for most situations, and a "Go Big or Go Home" setting for when the fault is severe, repeated, or the company has already ignored you once. The second setting isn't there so you can pad a minor complaint. It's there for the cases where going big is actually proportionate, a pattern of failures, a safety issue, a company that's already shown it won't move on a modest ask.
If you're not sure which one fits, a decent test: would you be comfortable explaining your number out loud to a stranger who knows the full story? If the answer is yes, it's probably reasonable. If you'd need to leave out a few details to make it sound fair, it's probably padded.
"Appropriate compensation" tells the reader nothing they can act on. A specific figure, a specific replacement, or a specific credit amount gives them something to approve, forward, or counter. Vague asks get vague responses, usually a form email and silence after that.
Resist the urge to list a refund and a credit and an apology as if any of them would do. Pick the one outcome that actually fixes the problem for you and lead with it. You can mention you're open to alternatives, but the letter should read like it knows what it wants.
Instead of: "I'd like a refund, or store credit, or some kind of compensation for the inconvenience, whatever you think is fair."
Try: "I'm asking for a full refund of $184.50, the cost of the order, within 10 business days."
DraftMyComplaints builds the compensation level right into the draft, so you pick a tone, dial the slider toward reasonable or go-big depending on how serious the situation actually is, and get a letter that states one clear number instead of a wishlist.
Draft my complaint now →