Refund and Cancellation Policy

The short version

How to cancel

Sign in at app.chatnec.com, open the billing page in your account, and cancel the subscription there. It takes one action, it works for monthly and annual plans alike, and you do not have to speak to anyone to do it.

If you would rather not use the billing page, email founders@chatnec.com from the address on the account and we will cancel it for you. We will confirm by email either way.

What cancelling does:

• It stops the automatic renewal. No further payment is taken.
• Your access continues until the end of the period you have already paid for. A monthly plan cancelled on day three still runs to day thirty.
• Your workspace, projects and documents stay in place during that period and for 90 days after it ends. See your documents after cancellation.

Cancelling is not the same as asking for a refund. If you want money back as well, see the two sections below.

The 14 day money back promise

We give a full refund of your first payment if you ask within 14 days of that payment. This applies whether you subscribe monthly or annually, and whether you are buying as a business or as a consumer. We do not pro rate it against the days you used, and we do not ask you to justify it.

To claim it, email founders@chatnec.com from the address on the account and say you want the 14 day refund. We aim to approve it the same working day and to send it within three.

The promise covers your first payment on a subscription. Later renewals are covered by the rules in renewals and other refunds instead. If you cancel and later resubscribe, the promise does not reset.

Your statutory rights as a consumer

If you are buying as a consumer rather than for a business, you also have a statutory right to cancel a distance contract within 14 days under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

• The 14 days run from the day the contract is made.
• ChatNEC gives you access immediately, so at checkout you are asked to agree that supply starts straight away and to acknowledge that you lose the statutory cancellation right once it has been fully performed. That is a requirement of the Regulations, not a trick.
• If you cancel during the 14 days after supply has started, the Regulations allow us to charge for what you have already had, in proportion to the full price.
• Our 14 day promise above is more generous than that, so in practice we refund the whole payment and do not make the proportionate deduction.

Nothing in this policy or in our Terms of Service reduces your statutory rights. Most ChatNEC subscribers buy for a business and the statutory right does not apply to them, which is precisely why we offer the same 14 days to everybody as a matter of policy.

Renewals, reminders and price changes

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, monthly or annually, until you cancel. Prices are published at chatnec.com/pricing, are in pounds sterling, and exclude VAT where it applies.

• Every payment produces a receipt by email, showing the amount, the plan, the period covered and how to cancel.
• For annual plans we email a reminder at least 30 days before the renewal date, so you have time to decide.
• If we change the price of your plan, the new price takes effect at your next renewal and we tell you at least 30 days beforehand.
• If an annual plan renews and you tell us within 14 days of that renewal that you did not want it, we cancel the renewed term and refund it in full, provided you have not used the service in the new term. If you have used it, we refund the unused months on a pro rata basis.

Other refunds we give

Outside the windows above we will refund, without argument, where:

• You were charged twice for the same period, or charged after you had cancelled.
• Someone paid who was not entitled to. Tell us and we will refund and secure the account.
• The service was substantially unavailable for a meaningful part of a billing period through our fault. We refund the affected part of the period.
• We materially reduce the functionality you subscribed to, or change these terms in a way that affects your rights and you would rather leave. You get a pro rata refund of the unused part of your term.
• We end your subscription for a reason that is not your breach of the Terms of Service. Same pro rata refund.

Beyond those, we would rather sort a problem out than stand on a policy. If something has gone wrong, write to us and say so.

What we do not refund

So that expectations are set before you pay, we do not normally refund:

• Part used months once the 14 day window has passed. Cancelling stops the next payment rather than clawing back the current one.
• A subscription ended because you seriously breached the acceptable use section of the Terms of Service.
• Dissatisfaction with the content of a particular answer, draft or findings report. ChatNEC produces drafts for you to check, and the not legal advice section explains why that matters. If output quality is the problem, tell us within the 14 days and take the money back promise.
• Charges older than 12 months.

These are the normal cases. Ask anyway if you think yours is not normal.

How a refund is paid

Refunds go back to the card or payment method that was charged, through Stripe. We cannot send a refund anywhere else.

• Refunds are made in pounds sterling, for the amount charged. If your card was billed in another currency, your bank's exchange rate on the day of the refund applies and the figure you see may differ slightly from the original.
• We approve refunds within one working day of agreeing them. Stripe then takes a further five to ten working days to show the money on your statement, depending on your bank.
• Where VAT was charged, it is refunded with the payment and a credit note is issued.

Failed payments and suspension

If a renewal payment fails, Stripe retries it over a short period and emails you each time so you can update the card. If it still cannot be collected, access is suspended rather than deleted.

Your workspace and documents are kept while the payment is outstanding, on the retention terms in the next section. Settle the payment and access returns immediately. Suspension for non-payment does not create a debt for the period you could not use the service.

Your documents after cancellation

Cancelling does not delete anything straight away.

• Your workspace stays live to the end of the period you have paid for.
• After that it is retained for 90 days, so you can come back or take your material out.
• At the end of the 90 days the workspace and its contents are deleted.
• You can ask us to delete everything sooner, and we will. Write to founders@chatnec.com.

Drafts, notifications and findings reports that ChatNEC produced for you are yours. Export anything you want to keep before the 90 days are up. Full detail on retention and deletion is in the Privacy Policy.

Before you raise a chargeback

If a charge looks wrong, email us first. We can usually refund it the same day, which is faster than a bank dispute and does not lock the payment up for weeks.

Charges from us appear on your statement as [[STATEMENT_DESCRIPTOR]]. If you do not recognise a line on a statement, that is what to look for.

How to contact us

[[LEGAL_ENTITY]]
[[REGISTERED_ADDRESS]]
founders@chatnec.com

We aim to answer within one working day. Refund requests are handled by the same people who build the product, so there is no queue to escalate through.