Refunds, Disputes & Reversals Policy

Effective: [EFFECTIVE DATE] · Version 1.0

Part of the Terms of Service. It explains how money goes back, who decides, and who bears a loss.

1. How refunds work on mobile money

This differs from cards, and the difference has practical consequences.

A mobile-money refund is a new outbound payment to the payer, not a cancellation of the original one. MTN Mobile Money and Orange Money provide no mechanism to reverse a completed collection. When you refund, SP-Heavy debits your wallet and sends a fresh transfer to the number that originally paid.

Four consequences follow:

1. A refund can fail. The payer's account may be closed, barred, or unable to receive. If it fails, the funds return to your wallet and the original payment stays successful — you must then arrange the refund another way.
2. A refund is not instant. It follows the normal payout lifecycle: it starts as pending, and reaches a final state when the provider confirms.
3. You need the balance. Refunds come out of your available wallet balance. If you have already settled that money to your bank, the refund will be declined for insufficient funds until you have balance again.
4. The original payment is marked reversed only when the money actually reaches the payer — not when you request the refund.

2. Refund amounts and fees

• The refundable amount is the net you received: the original amount minus the platform fee.
• The platform fee on the original collection is not returned. We incurred the cost of processing that payment; this is standard practice among payment processors. Factor it into your own refund policy.
• Partial refunds are [SUPPORTED / NOT CURRENTLY SUPPORTED — confirm and keep this aligned with the API].
• A refund may itself incur a payout fee, per [FEE SCHEDULE].

3. Your refund policy

You are responsible for setting and honouring your own refund policy. You must:

• Publish it where customers can read it before they pay
• Make it consistent with consumer-protection law applicable to your customers
• Honour it in practice

If you do not have a policy, or you do not honour it, we may make a refund decision ourselves under §5.

4. Requesting a refund

Refunds are initiated by you, through the dashboard or the API. A payer cannot initiate a refund directly with us; they must ask you.

Only a successful collection can be refunded. Pending payments cannot — either wait for them to complete or let them expire. Refunding twice returns the existing refund; it does not send the payer a second payment.

5. Disputes

If a payer contacts us claiming a payment was unauthorised, or that goods or services were not delivered, we will:

1. Direct them to you first — you are the seller and hold the commercial relationship;
2. Notify you and ask for your account of the transaction, with any evidence (delivery confirmation, correspondence, your published terms);
3. Where the payer's claim appears well-founded and you do not resolve it within [DISPUTE RESPONSE WINDOW — e.g. 7 days], we may refund the payer from your balance, and tell you why.

We may also refund without your agreement where a provider, regulator, court or law-enforcement body directs us to.

Unauthorised transactions

Where a payment is confirmed as unauthorised — for example, the payer's account was compromised — the funds are returned to the payer. The loss falls to you, because you accepted the transaction, unless we determine the failure was ours.

Evidence

Keep records that let you evidence a legitimate sale: what was bought, what was delivered, when, and to whom. Disputes are usually decided on evidence, and the merchant who cannot produce any usually loses.

6. Reversals

We may reverse a settled transaction where:

• a payment provider reverses it to us;
• it was processed in error, including duplicates caused by a technical fault;
• it results from fraud or a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy;
• a court, regulator or law-enforcement body requires it.

A reversal debits your wallet. If your balance is insufficient, it becomes a negative balance you must repay on demand — see Terms §6.4. We may set it off against future collections.

7. Excessive refunds and disputes

A high rate of refunds, disputes or failed payments is a risk indicator, and our providers monitor it. If your rate exceeds [THRESHOLD — e.g. 2% of monthly volume] we may:

• ask you to explain and to make changes;
• impose a reserve or extend settlement times;
• increase your fees to reflect the risk; or
• suspend or terminate the account.

The most common causes are unclear product descriptions, slow delivery, and subscription renewals customers did not expect. Fixing the cause is faster than appealing the consequence.

8. Timing

Network outages can extend these. Where the outcome of a payout is unconfirmed, we hold the funds and reconcile with the provider rather than guessing — funds are never released on an assumption.

9. Your customers

Direct payers to you, not to us, in the first instance. Publish a contact address and answer it. If a payer cannot reach you, they will escalate to us or to their mobile-money operator, and unresolved escalations count against your account.

Payers may also use our Complaints Procedure.

[COMPANY LEGAL NAME] · Questions: [SUPPORT EMAIL]