Guide

Read the notice like a reviewer.

Freeze emails are written to end conversations. Read properly, yours contains your whole case in outline: five answers, hidden in the boilerplate. Get them on paper before you write a single word back.

The five questions

1. Who decided?

"Our risk team," "Trust & Safety," an automated system? The sender tells you the appeal channel. Risk-team decisions move on documents; automated ones often move on the checklist in the email itself.

2. How much, exactly?

The balance held, any percentage reserved, and any amount already released. If the email doesn't state it, your dashboard does. This number decides half your strategy — including whether a lawyer is proportionate.

3. Under which rule?

The policy, section, or agreement clause cited — "Section 3," "§3.3," "permanent limitation." The citation is the ground your appeal stands on: answer the rule they cited, not the one you wish they'd cited.

4. Which clock is running?

Appeal windows, hold durations, reply-by dates. The shortest clock in the email is your real deadline. Some are 30 days; some TikTok windows are 12–72 hours. The decoder counts them from your notice date.

5. What do they want from you?

Documents, an appeal, a correction, or nothing ("no further action")? "Nothing" is itself an answer: it routes you to the money track (disbursement, withdrawal date, written amount/clause/date request) instead of the appeal track.

Five answers, one page of notes. That page is the first page of every appeal, packet, and letter in the kit — because a case organized this way is the kind reviewers, executives, and (when it comes to it) lawyers can actually act on.

Run the free decoder with your five answers →