Refund Policy

Last updated: June 1, 2024

By purchasing from us you agree to be bound by this Refund Policy (hereinafter referred to as the “Policy”). Please read it in full before submitting your order. This Policy forms a part of and is incorporated into the Terms of Service. 

1. All Orders Are Final and Non-Refundable

All orders placed with us are final and non-refundable. Except for the narrow situations expressly described in Sections 2, 3, and 4 below, and except where a refund is required by applicable law that cannot be waived by contract, we do not provide refunds, credits, or reversals of any kind, for any reason, including without limitation change of mind, change of circumstances on your side, change in the recipient’s requirements after the order was placed, delay, dissatisfaction with style or formatting, non-acceptance by any recipient, or any other reason not expressly listed in this Policy. By placing an order, you acknowledge and agree to this no-refund rule and to the limited exceptions described below.

This Policy defines the exclusive circumstances under which refunds, credits, or revisions may be considered for our Services. Because translation, certification, notarization, apostille assistance, document handling, and related professional services require the commitment of labor, professional review, certifications, signatures, materials, third-party charges, and processing capacity from the moment an order is received, refunds, where granted at all, are governed exclusively by this Policy.

2. Cancellation Window

Orders may be cancelled by you only during the brief window, if any, between the moment we receive your payment and the moment we issue an order confirmation. Once we have issued an order confirmation by email or through the website, the order is considered received in our work queue and assigned for processing, and the order is final, non-cancellable, and non-refundable.

To request cancellation within the window described above, you must send a written cancellation notice to info@LingvaShop.com that we receive and acknowledge before we have issued an order confirmation. A cancellation notice sent at the same time as, or after, our order confirmation is not effective and does not entitle you to a refund. If we receive and acknowledge a timely cancellation notice, we will refund the amount you paid for the order, excluding any non-refundable third-party fees we have already paid on your behalf and any non-recoverable processing, merchant and/or transaction fees.

3. No Cancellation After Order Confirmation

After we issue an order confirmation, the order may not be cancelled by you, in whole or in part, for any reason. We are under no obligation to stop work, refund any amount, deliver any partial work product, or return any source materials in connection with a purported cancellation submitted after the order confirmation has been issued. Any request submitted after the order confirmation, even if labeled as a “cancellation,” is treated as a request to discontinue communications about the order, not as an entitlement to a refund or credit.

This rule applies regardless of how much work has actually been performed on the order at the time of your request, regardless of whether the deliverable has been started, partially completed, finalized, or shipped, and regardless of whether the source material has been opened or reviewed. The economic basis for this rule is that committing an order to our work queue itself reserves capacity, blocks alternative work, and triggers internal handling, regardless of when the translator first opens the file.

4. Company-Initiated Cancellation

Notwithstanding the no-refund rule in this Policy, we may, in our sole discretion and at any time, cancel an order placed by you, including without limitation orders that we believe involve fraudulent payment, suspected money laundering, sanctioned or restricted parties, unlawful or infringing content, content we are not equipped to translate, source material that has been materially misrepresented, or any other circumstance that, in our judgment, presents an unreasonable legal, regulatory, security, or commercial risk to us. Where we cancel an order before any meaningful work has been performed, we will refund the amount you paid for that order, less any non-refundable third-party fees we have already paid on your behalf and any non-recoverable processing, merchants and/or transaction fees. Where we cancel an order for cause attributable to you, including without limitation any of the matters listed above, no refund is owed.

A company-initiated cancellation under this Section is the only mechanism by which a refund may be issued after an order confirmation has been issued, except where a refund is required by applicable law that cannot be waived by contract, or as expressly provided in Section 5 below for confirmed objective errors caused by us.

5. Completed and Delivered Orders Are Final

Once an order has been completed and delivered, the order is final, accepted, and non-refundable. The sole and exclusive remedy for any objectively demonstrable defect in the deliverable is revision under Section 6, not a refund. Subjective preferences as to word choice, register, tone, style, formatting, or layout are not defects and do not qualify for a refund or revision. A change of mind, a change of circumstances on your side, a change in the recipient’s requirements after the order was placed, the fact that you no longer need the deliverable, the fact that any recipient refused, returned, or requested modifications to the deliverable, or any disappointment with the result, do not qualify for a refund. Where we, in our sole discretion, determine that we caused a confirmed objective error within the categories described in Section 6, our exclusive remedy is to redo the affected portion of the work at no additional service charge, subject to your payment of any additional government, notary, courier, or other third-party fees required to re-process or redeliver the work.

6. Revisions in Lieu of Refund

Free revisions, where available, are offered subject to and as described in Section 6 of the Terms of Service. The remedy for a meritorious revision request is correction of the deliverable, in the form, scope, and method we determine in our sole discretion. A revision request is not, on its own, grounds for a refund.

Scope of Free Revision. We offer one (1) free revision per completed translation, limited to correction of typographical errors and plain translator mistakes, specifically: typographical errors, plain mistranslations of words clearly present in the source, omitted or added content not present in the source, and incorrect dates or numbers where the correct values are unambiguous from the source. Subjective preferences as to word choice, register, tone, style, formatting, or layout are not defects and do not qualify for the free revision.

Single-Email Requirement. To qualify for the free revision, you must submit a single written request by email to info@LingvaShop.com within five (5) business days after delivery of the completed translation. That single email must list every item you wish to have corrected, with sufficient specificity for us to locate each item in the source and the deliverable. For purposes of this Policy, “business days” means Monday through Friday, excluding U.S. federal holidays. Items not included in the qualifying single email are not covered by the free revision, even if they would otherwise have qualified.

Items That Do Not Qualify for the Free Revision. The free revision does not cover, and any corresponding work is subject to additional charges to be quoted in advance, including without limitation: (a) any change to the spelling or transliteration of proper names, place names, institution names, or other items where the spelling, transliteration, or rendering was not provided by you before work began; (b) any change to format, layout, terminology, or stylistic preferences not specified by you before work began; (c) any item raised after the free revision has been delivered; (d) any item raised in a second or subsequent email rather than as part of the single qualifying email; (e) any item raised after the five-business-day window; and (f) any item that does not fall within the categories of objective error listed above.

Additional Revisions. Any revision work outside the scope of the one free revision described above is treated as an additional out-of-scope service. We may, at our sole discretion, perform such additional work for an additional charge to be quoted in advance, which may include without limitation a re-review fee, the cost of any new certification or notarization, and the cost of any new shipment required to deliver the revised work. The existence of this discretionary process creates no obligation on our part to perform any additional work and no entitlement on your part to a free or discounted revision.

7. No Guarantees

We do not provide any guarantees, whether express or implied, as to acceptance and/or use of any our translation and/or certificate. We do not guarantee that any translation, certification, notarization, apostille, or other deliverable will be accepted by any recipient, including but not limited to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the U.S. Department of State, any court, embassy, consulate, university, professional licensing board, employer, bank, insurer, or any other public or private authority or institution. We do not maintain, publish, or recognize any “guaranteed acceptance list,” “money-back guarantee,” or similar commitment, and the absence of any such list or guarantee creates no obligation, expectation, or liability on our part.

Descriptive Use of “Accepted” and Similar Language. Any use on our website, in advertisements, in landing pages, on order pages, on service pages, in headers, in graphics, in badges, in trust marks, in customer-quote forms, in FAQs, in emails, in invoices, in quotes, in social-media posts, or in any other communication, of any of the following or similar words or phrases is descriptive only and refers to the general intended use, common use, format, or purpose of the Service or deliverable: “accepted,” “acceptance,” “accepted by,” “accepted at,” “accepted for,” “USCIS accepted,” “USCIS-accepted,” “USCIS Accepted,” “accepted for USCIS,” “USCIS-ready,” “ready for USCIS,” “immigration accepted,” “government accepted,” “court accepted,” “accepted by courts,” “embassy accepted,” “consulate accepted,” “school accepted,” “college accepted,” “university accepted,” “medical office accepted,” “bank accepted,” “attorney accepted,” “agency accepted,” “agency-ready,” “commonly accepted,” “typically accepted,” “widely accepted,” “prepared for,” “used for,” “compliant with,” “meets the requirements of,” or any other word, phrase, image, badge, icon, seal, or visual indicator suggesting acceptance, approval, recognition, endorsement, or readiness for use by any specific recipient or any category of recipient. Such language and imagery are not a guarantee, warranty, promise, condition, assurance, or commitment of acceptance by any recipient and do not create any refund right, any money-back guarantee, any exception to this Policy, or any other obligation on our part.

You acknowledge that acceptance is determined on a case-by-case basis by the recipient, that requirements vary between recipients, between offices of the same recipient, between officers of the same office, and between submissions, that those requirements change without notice, and that the final decision to accept or reject any deliverable rests solely with the recipient.

You are solely responsible for confirming the recipient’s requirements before placing your order, including without limitation language pair, certification format, signatures, seals, notarization, apostille, hard-copy versus digital delivery, formatting, page count, and any deadlines. Non-acceptance by any recipient is not, on its own, grounds for a refund. If a recipient rejects a deliverable because of a confirmed objective error caused by us within the categories described in Section 6, the remedy is revision under Section 6 of this Policy and Section 6 of the Terms of Service, not a refund.

8. Turnaround Times

All turnaround times we publish or quote are estimates only, are not binding deadlines, and exclude weekends, U.S. federal holidays, time required for customer responses, time required for our review of difficult or illegible source material, and any period during which the order is paused for any reason. Late delivery is not, on its own, grounds for a refund. 

Turnaround begins once a translator is assigned to the project. Delays during order processing—for example, unreadable or low-quality source files, incorrect word or page counts, an incorrect language pair, missing pages, or pending clarifications from the customer—may push back the start time and adjust the original estimate. If an assigned translator becomes unavailable, we will reassign the project as quickly as possible, which may also affect the original estimated turnaround time.

We do not guarantee any specific delivery time for any order unless we have provided a written guarantee that specifically references the order, and any refund associated with a written turnaround guarantee is limited to the surcharge paid by you for that guarantee, if any, and never the full price of the order.

9. Apostille, Notarization, and Government-Filed Services

Apostille, notarization, and other services that involve filing with, or processing by, a government office, court, or third-party authority are subject to the rules, fees, schedules, queues, rejections, and policies of those authorities. Government and third-party fees are non-refundable once paid or once a filing has been made on your behalf, even if the authority subsequently rejects, returns, or delays the filing. Rejection or delay by an authority is not, on its own, grounds for a refund of our service fee. Where a rejection is caused solely by a confirmed objective error by us, our remedy is to redo the affected portion of our work at no additional service charge, subject to your payment of any additional government or third-party fees required to re-file or re-process.

10. Shipping and Hard-Copy Delivery

Shipping fees and the cost of physical materials are non-refundable once a package has been tendered to a carrier or once physical materials have been produced. Loss, damage, delay, misdelivery, or any other event affecting a package after it has been tendered to a carrier, including without limitation FedEx, UPS, DHL Express, and the United States Postal Service (USPS), is solely the responsibility of the carrier. We will reasonably assist you with tracking and carrier claims at your request, but we do not refund the order fee or the shipping fee on account of any carrier event. Where required, you are solely responsible for filing any carrier claim in your own name. If applicable, we will also work with you to prepare a replacement shipment. Additional shipping or service fees may apply.

11. Non-Refundable Items

Without limiting the foregoing, the following are non-refundable in all cases:

• All order fees once an order confirmation has been issued, except as expressly provided in Sections 2 and 4 of this Policy or as required by applicable law that cannot be waived by contract.
• Government, court, agency, embassy, consular, and other third-party fees paid by us on your behalf, including without limitation apostille filing fees, certified copy fees, and notarization fees, once paid or filed.
• Rush, expedited, priority, same-day, and similar surcharges, once an order confirmation has been issued.
• Shipping, courier, and handling fees, once paid by us or once a package has been tendered to a carrier, whichever is earlier.
• Fees for completed and delivered translations, certifications, notarizations, and apostille assistance, which are final under Section 5 of this Policy.
• Payment-processing, merchant, transaction, currency-conversion, and similar third-party fees we incur in connection with your order.
• Discounts, promotional credits, gift cards, and loyalty credits, which have no cash value.
• Any amount in excess of the amount you actually paid us for the specific Service in dispute.

12. Customer Conduct Affecting Eligibility

Any refund, revision, or other accommodation that would otherwise be available under this Policy may be denied, in whole or in part, in our sole discretion, where you have: (a) provided source material that was illegible, incomplete, altered, forged, or misrepresented; (b) failed to provide a confirmed spelling, transliteration, or other necessary information before work began; (c) instructed us to follow a specific spelling, format, or rendering that you later seek to challenge; (d) failed to respond to our requests for clarification within the time we specified; (e) submitted the request after the applicable deadline in this Policy; (f) materially breached the Terms of Service; or (g) engaged in abusive, threatening, or fraudulent conduct toward us, our personnel, or our service providers.

13. Refund Processing

Where any refund is approved under this Policy, it is issued to the original payment method. Processing time on our side is typically within ten (10) business days after approval. The time required for the funds to appear on your statement depends on your bank or card network and is not within our control. Refunds do not include any third-party processing, merchant and/or transaction fees. We are not responsible for fees, taxes, or exchange-rate differences your bank or card network may apply.

14. Disputes and Chargebacks

You agree to contact us first in writing at info@LingvaShop.com and to give us a reasonable opportunity to investigate any concern about an order, before initiating a chargeback, payment-card dispute, billing inquiry, or similar process with your bank, card issuer, payment processor, or any third party. Many concerns are resolved promptly once we receive specifics in writing.

A chargeback initiated before you have given us notice and a reasonable opportunity to address the matter, a chargeback initiated for reasons outside this Policy, a chargeback initiated after a refund or revision has been offered or completed, or a chargeback that misrepresents the facts of the transaction, is considered abusive. We respond to chargebacks with full documentation, including, but not limited to the order record, communications, IP and device data, signed certifications, proof of delivery, and the applicable provisions of the Terms of Service and this Policy.

If a chargeback is filed in violation of this Section, or is decided in our favor, we may, in our sole discretion and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law: (a) suspend or terminate your account and refuse to perform any further service for you; (b) bill you for the chargeback amount, all chargeback fees imposed on us by our payment processor or card network, and any reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees we incur in responding; (c) report the matter to our payment processor, the card networks, and any applicable fraud-prevention services; and (d) pursue any other remedy available to us under applicable law.

You authorize us to disclose order-related information, communications, source materials, deliverables, proof of work, proof of delivery, IP and device data, payment records, and any other transaction documentation to our payment processors, card networks, issuing banks, acquiring banks, fraud-prevention providers, and legal advisors as we determine is reasonably necessary to investigate, respond to, or contest any chargeback, payment-card dispute, billing inquiry, fraud claim, or similar process. This authorization is in addition to, and does not limit, any disclosures permitted under our Privacy Policy.

15. Pass-Through Charges and Discounts

Where an order includes pass-through charges paid by us to third parties on your behalf, including without limitation apostille filing fees, notary fees, and courier fees, those charges are refunded only to the extent we actually recover them from the third party. Where an order was placed using a promotional discount, gift card, store credit, or loyalty credit, any refund will be reduced by, or returned in the form of, the corresponding promotional value, and the cash portion of the refund will not exceed the cash amount you actually paid.

16. Maximum Refund Amount

In no event shall any refund issued under this Policy exceed the amount you actually paid to us for the specific Service giving rise to the claim. This Policy does not entitle you to recover any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages, including but not limited to health issues (anxiety attacks, loss of sleep, etc.), medical bills, lost profits, lost opportunities, lost time, lost wages, denial of any application or benefit, or any other loss, all of which are excluded under the Terms of Service to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

17. Changes to This Policy

We may modify this Policy at any time by posting the revised Policy on the website and updating the “Last updated” date above. Modifications are effective immediately upon posting unless a later effective date is stated and apply to all orders placed after the effective date.

18. Contact

For any questions about this Refund Policy, please email us at info@LingvaShop.com