Refund, Cancellation & Delivery Policy

1. What this policy covers

This policy covers every payment you make to Stone Bridge Consulting (Pty) Ltd, trading as Stone Bridge Tech (“we”, “us”), for a subscription or service, whether through Paystack or against an invoice. That includes subscriptions to our products. This policy forms part of our Terms of Service, which also define the terms used here. In particular, a business day is Monday to Friday excluding South African public holidays, and a billing month runs from one billing date to the day before the next. “Month” in this policy means a billing month.

You accept this policy at checkout, before you pay.

It sets the minimum you are entitled to. A product’s own terms may give you more generous cancellation or refund rights, but never less.

All amounts are in South African rand (ZAR). We are not registered for VAT and do not charge it.

2. Delivery of services

All our services are delivered online. We do not ship physical goods, so there are no delivery or shipping charges, and nothing is couriered to you.

• Immediate access. Your subscription or upgrade normally starts as soon as Paystack confirms your payment, usually within minutes.
• Services we set up for you. If a service has to be set up for you, we complete the setup and email you your access details within 2 business days of payment.
• Confirmation. You receive an emailed receipt for every payment, and we email you when your service is active.
• Delays. If we cannot deliver within these times, we will tell you why and when to expect delivery. If we cannot deliver at all, we will refund you in full.
• Where we supply. We supply our services online from South Africa. If a product is available only to South African customers, its website says so.

3. How to cancel

You can cancel at any time, in whichever of these ways is easiest:

1. in the product’s account or billing settings, where it has them;
2. by emailing hello@stone-bridge.tech with the product name and “Cancel subscription”. Please send it from the email address on your account if you can. If you cannot, we may ask you to confirm your identity;
3. by phoning us on +27 71 614 9238 during business hours. We will confirm the request to the email address on your account before acting on it.

We stop the recurring charge in Paystack, and we confirm your cancellation by email within 2 business days. We take no payments after you cancel, and we never charge a cancellation fee. What happens to your access depends on your plan. See sections 4 and 5.

4. 7-day money-back guarantee

If you cancel within 7 calendar days of your first payment for a product, we refund that payment in full, and you do not have to give a reason. Your access ends when we confirm your cancellation. The guarantee applies once for each product per customer, meaning the person or organisation named on the account, and it does not cover renewals. We may refuse it where we reasonably believe it is being abused, for example through repeated sign-ups by the same person under different details, and we will tell you if we do.

This guarantee is our own promise. It is separate from the cooling-off right in section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. Under section 42 of that Act, the cooling-off right does not apply to services that begin, with your consent, before the cooling-off period ends. By paying, you ask us to start the service immediately, so this exclusion normally applies. Where section 44 does apply to you, you keep that right in addition to this guarantee.

5. Cancelling after the first 7 days

When an annual term ends. We email you between 40 and 80 business days before your 12-month term ends. If you do not tell us otherwise, your plan continues month to month after that, at the plan’s monthly price or, if it has no monthly price, one twelfth of the annual price, as set out in section 4 of our Terms of Service. You can cancel it at any time. It renews for another 12 months only if you agree. This follows section 14 of the Consumer Protection Act. That section gives consumers the right to cancel a fixed-term agreement on 20 business days’ notice, subject to a reasonable cancellation penalty. We give you more: you can cancel at any time, effective at the end of the current billing month, with no penalty.

6. Other refunds

We refund the amount concerned in full, at any time, if:

• you were charged twice for the same thing;
• you were charged after you had cancelled;
• you were charged the wrong amount (we refund the difference);
• we could not deliver the service you paid for (see section 2);
• we end your subscription for a reason that is not your fault (we refund the unused part of the billing period).

Service availability commitments and any credits for downtime are set out in each product’s own terms.

7. How refunds are paid

• Payments made through Paystack are refunded through Paystack to the card or bank account you paid from. If Paystack cannot return the money that way, we will ask you for a South African bank account in your name, and we may verify it before paying.
• Invoice payments are refunded by EFT to a South African bank account in the payer’s name. We will ask you for the account details, and we may verify them before paying.
• We process a refund within 5 business days of approving it, and in every case within 30 days of your cancellation or request. Your bank usually takes another 5 to 10 business days to show the money in your account.
• We email you a refund receipt with the amount, the date and the payment reference.

8. Requesting a refund

Email hello@stone-bridge.tech with:

• the product name;
• the email address on your account;
• the date and amount of the payment;
• the Paystack payment reference from your receipt.

We will reply within 2 business days. If a request falls outside this policy, we will tell you why we cannot refund it.

If you think a charge is wrong, please contact us before you dispute it with your bank, because we can usually fix it faster. Disputing a charge does not affect your rights under this policy.

9. Consulting and project work

The proposal or statement of work we agree with you governs payments for consulting, development or hosting work, such as deposits and milestone invoices. Unless it says otherwise, we refund a deposit less the work already done, charged at the rates in the proposal.

10. Changes to this policy

A payment is governed by the version of this policy that applied when you made it. If we make a material change, we will email active subscribers and clients at least 30 days before it takes effect.