Cancellation & Refund Policy

This policy applies to money you pay us for Arbiter:

• Pro — the recurring monthly subscription.
• Quotations — a negotiated one-time payment that unlocks every feature, including online entries, for one specific tournament.

It forms part of our Terms of Service; where the two overlap, this policy governs cancellations and refunds. The Free tier costs nothing and needs no cancellation — simply stop using it, or delete your account from the settings page.

Refunds for a withdrawn entry, a cancelled or postponed event, or a rejected registration are the organiser's responsibility and follow the organiser's own refund rules. Contact them directly. If you cannot reach the organiser, email us at hello@chess-arbiter.com with the tournament name — we will pass your request on, but we cannot refund money we never received.

Organisers: the per-entrant convenience fee recorded on a quotation is part of the commercial record of that quote. It is not charged to your candidates by the Service.

• Payments are processed by Razorpay, an RBI- authorised payment aggregator. Depending on the method you choose this may include cards, UPI, net banking or wallets.
• We never see or store your card or bank details. They are entered on Razorpay's secure checkout. We receive only a customer reference, a subscription reference and the payment status.
• Pro is billed in INR or USD depending on your region. Refunds are issued in the same currency as the original payment.
• Prices are shown on the pricing section and confirmed at checkout, exclusive of taxes unless stated otherwise. Applicable taxes are refunded along with a refunded payment.

Automatic renewal

• A Pro subscription renews automatically at the end of each monthly period until you cancel. You authorise this recurring debit when you subscribe, by setting up a mandate (e-mandate, UPI AutoPay or card mandate) through Razorpay.
• As required by the Reserve Bank of India's framework for recurring payments, you receive a pre-debit notification before each automatic debit, with the option to decline it or to cancel the mandate.
• We email you when a subscription is activated, when it renews (with a receipt), when a payment fails, when you cancel, and when access ends. These go to your registered account email address, so keep it current.

• The trial is free, lasts 7 days, is available once per account, and requires no payment method. No mandate is created and nothing is charged.
• It does not convert into a paid subscription automatically. When it ends, the account simply returns to Free — there is nothing to cancel and no refund to claim.
• We email you before the trial ends and again when it has ended.
• Everything created during the trial stays in your account and stays exportable.

• Cancel any time from Billing in the app. It takes effect immediately as an instruction — no email, phone call or notice period is required.
• Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. You keep full Pro access until that date, and you are not billed again. We cancel the mandate with Razorpay so no further debit is attempted.
• We deliberately do not cut access at the moment you cancel — you paid for the period, so you get the period.
• You can resubscribe later; your tournaments and data are still there.

If we cancel

• If a renewal payment fails, your subscription enters a short grace period during which access continues and we email you. If payment still has not succeeded when the grace period ends, paid features stop. No refund arises, because no payment was taken.
• If we terminate your account for breach of the acceptable use rules, fees already paid are not refunded.
• If we discontinue the Service, we give at least 60 days' notice and refund the unused portion of any prepaid period.

We issue a full refund, without argument, where:

• You were charged twice for the same period, or a single action produced duplicate payments.
• You were charged after cancelling — a renewal was debited despite a cancellation that had already taken effect.
• A payment succeeded but access was never granted — money left your account and the subscription or quotation did not activate, and we cannot resolve it promptly.
• We made a billing error — wrong amount, wrong currency, wrong plan, or a price change applied without the notice our Terms require.
• A refund is required by law.

We also consider, case by case:

• An unintended renewal you did not use. If a monthly renewal was charged, you tell us within 7 days, and there has been no meaningful use of Pro features in that period, we will normally refund it in full and cancel the subscription.
• A material feature reduction. If we materially reduce a feature central to the plan you are paying for, you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused period, as set out in our Terms.
• Extended unavailability. A prolonged outage attributable to us that prevented you from running an event.

• Partial or unused periods after a normal cancellation. You keep access for the full period you paid for, so there is no unused time to return.
• Change of mind after substantial use of paid features during the billing period.
• Forgetting to cancel beyond the 7-day window described above, where the plan was used.
• Your tournament was cancelled, postponed or under-subscribed. The Service was available to you as sold.
• Dissatisfaction with results that are documented as indicative — FIDE or AICF records being out of date, an answer from the Rulebook assistant, or a norm form not being accepted by a federation. These limits are set out in the Terms.
• Accounts terminated for breach of the Terms.
• Free plan and trial usage — nothing was charged.
• Tournament entry fees — see section 2.

A quotation is a one-time payment covering one tournament for the validity period stated when it is issued. It is negotiated, so it is treated differently from a subscription.

A quotation covers the tournament it is bound to. It cannot be transferred to another tournament or another organiser after redemption, and it does not renew.

Email hello@chess-arbiter.com from your registered account email address, with:

1. the email address on the account;
2. the date and amount of the payment, and the Razorpay payment or order ID from your receipt;
3. for a quotation, the quotation code and the tournament it was redeemed against;
4. the reason for the request.

We acknowledge within 2 working days and decide within 5 working days. If we decline, we tell you why and point at the clause we relied on. If you disagree, reply and a human will look at it again before you escalate to your bank.

• Refunds are always returned to the original payment method. We cannot pay to a different card, account or person, and we do not refund in cash, credit or vouchers unless you ask for account credit instead.
• Refunds are made in the original currency. Where a card was billed in a different currency, the amount you receive may differ slightly because of your issuer's exchange rate and any foreign transaction fee — those are set by your bank, not by us.
• We do not deduct payment gateway charges from a refund.
• Once a refund is initiated, Razorpay issues a reference number; ask us for it if you need to follow up with your bank.

• Money debited but the plan not activated. This usually means the payment was authorised but not captured. Such amounts are auto-reversed by your bank, typically within 5–7 working days, without any action from you. If it has not appeared after 7 working days, email us with the payment reference and we will trace it with Razorpay.
• Duplicate charges are refunded in full as soon as we confirm them — you do not need to argue the case.
• A failed renewal is not a charge. Nothing is taken, so there is nothing to refund; your access continues through a short grace period while you update the payment method.

If something looks wrong on your statement, please contact us before raising a dispute with your bank. Almost every case is a renewal that was forgotten or a duplicate charge, and we can resolve either far faster than a chargeback, which takes weeks and freezes the transaction while it runs.

We may suspend an account with an open chargeback until it is resolved. Where a chargeback is raised for a payment we have already refunded, or for a service that was delivered as described, we will contest it with the evidence we hold, including account activity and audit logs.

We may update this policy as the Service and its billing evolve. The “last updated” date at the top always reflects the current version, and material changes are notified by email at least 14 days before they take effect. The policy in force when you made a payment is the one that applies to that payment.

Billing, cancellations and refunds: hello@chess-arbiter.com
Arbiter, [CITY], India

See also our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.