It is a legal requirement to issue a refund upon request?

Just wondering if there are any legal obligations to issuing a refund from online buyers when asked. I am launching an online service and unfortunately it would be difficult to impossible to return money because of the nature of the work.

Are you referring to the UK? Most likely a civil matter - if the customer feels they are entitled to a refund (e.g. if they feel you breached the contract/terms of service; i.e. the service doesn’t work as advertised, or you breached your privacy policy, etc) then they could take you to court to gain a judgement against you. You may also find card issuers filing chargebacks against you, so the refunding decision is out of your hands. It’s very hard for vendors to win chargebacks when there’s no ‘proof of delivery’.

In what situations would it be actually impossible to refund the customer?

@shadowbox;

I do a lot of business in Cyprus. As it happen will probably be based over there for various reasons. That being said the business pra

The service will be to work on existing websites and install certain premium plugins. Unfortunately all these cost money, so giving a refund would cost me quite a bit of money. Furthermore some of the services I’d be using don’t give back refunds, so this leaves me in a hard spot.

On another note, the product delivered would be a digital product, so there would be no physical products involved.

I hope this helps.

I’ve noticed that there is a standard 30-day money back guarantee on certain things online. I am not entirely sure why this is.

I’ve noticed that there is a standard 30-day money back guarantee on certain things online. I am not entirely sure why this is.

A sales tool in most cases - it gives customers the confidence to purchase your services.

The service will be to work on existing websites and install certain premium plugins. Unfortunately all these cost money, so giving a refund would cost me quite a bit of money. Furthermore some of the services I’d be using don’t give back refunds, so this leaves me in a hard spot.


TBH if you intend doing this as a business, you might want to consider buying multisite/developer licenses for these premium plugins; most plugin developers offer this option, so refunds become a moot point because each license doesn’t cost you anything ‘per client’. Or talk to the plug in developers about license transfers - if you refund a client, see if you can transfer the license you bought for them to the next client who wants it.

Regarding refunds in general, IMO as it’s a service, it’s no different to performing any other type of web development work so you could certainly say in your contract that refunds cannot be given, but that doesn’t stop the client asking for one, nor demanding it through their card issuer or the courts (assuming Cypriot law is the same as UK…).

I think you’ll find that refund requests would be pretty rare, especially if you handle customer expectations well early on in the process. How likely do you feel customers would be looking for refunds, and for what reasons?

Select the right payment provider in order to tackle this issue. If you go with third party ewallets like paypal, neteller or Moneybooker and if you are offering tangible products online, you might not have any choice but to refund the money on request.