Refund Policy

If you bought from a store — the merchant who runs that store is the seller, and their return policy applies. Sections 3 to 15 are for you.

If you are a merchant paying for a plan — sections 16 to 19 cover subscription fees, commission and discount codes.

Section 2 defines the words both halves use.

“Merchant”: the person or business that runs a store on the platform. The merchant is the seller.

“Shopper” or “customer”: a person who buys from a store.

“Order”: a purchase recorded in a store.

“Return request”: the request you file with a store to send something back.

“Refund”: the money coming back to you. On this platform the money moves between you and the merchant; we record it.

“eMatjarak” or “the platform”: the software each store runs on, and its operator.

Every store on eMatjarak is owned and run by an independent merchant. The merchant sets the prices, ships the goods, takes the money and writes the return policy — including which items can be returned and how long you have.

eMatjarak supplies the software that records a return request and a refund. We do not sell the goods, we do not hold the money, and we do not decide whether a particular refund is owed.

So we cannot force a merchant to refund you, and we cannot refund you ourselves.

The return window, the exceptions and who pays return shipping are the merchant's to set, and they must be published on the store's own returns page.

Every new store is created with a returns page and a return form already on it. The merchant fills in the window, the refund method and the exceptions. A page still showing placeholder text has not been completed — ask the merchant before you buy.

Where a store's published policy says something different from this page, the store's policy governs your purchase. This page describes the mechanics, not the merchant's terms.

Go to the returns page of the store you bought from and use its return form, or ask the merchant directly.

You do not need an account. The form asks for your order code and the phone number on the order, and it checks both against the real order before it creates anything.

Say what you are returning and why. The request appears in the merchant's dashboard.

A request starts as requested. The merchant then approves it, rejects it, or closes it.

An approved request is marked refunded once the merchant has settled with you, or closed if it goes no further.

You are messaged when a request is approved, rejected or refunded.

A rejected request is final in the system. If you disagree, take it up with the merchant, or file a fresh request if the circumstances changed.

The money comes back the way it came, from the merchant:

cash on delivery — in cash, arranged with the merchant or their courier;

a wallet transfer (Sham Cash, Syriatel Cash, MTN Cash) — back to the wallet the payment was sent from.

It comes back in the currency you paid in: an order paid in Syrian pounds is refunded in Syrian pounds, one paid in dollars in dollars. We do not convert between them, so any exchange-rate movement between the purchase and the refund is a matter for you and the merchant.

eMatjarak does not transfer the money and does not hold it at any point.

Most orders on the platform are paid in cash on delivery, collected by the merchant or their courier.

Check the goods when they arrive. Refusing delivery costs you nothing and is far easier than getting money back afterwards.

Once you have handed the cash over, a refund is arranged with the merchant directly, under their return policy.

When a merchant marks a return refunded, the platform writes a refund record against the order so the store's history and reports stay truthful. The cash itself moves off-platform.

That record covers the full settled amount of the order's payment. Anything else — a partial refund, a restocking fee, shipping refunded on its own — is arranged between you and the merchant and is not itemised in our record.

Where the order's payment was never settled in the system, which is normal for cash on delivery, there is no payment to record against: the return is marked refunded and noted as handled off-platform.

A refund record is bookkeeping. It is not a transfer, and it is not proof that you were paid.

Partial refunds, exchanges, replacements and store credit are between you and the merchant, under their policy.

The platform's return flow records one outcome per request — refunded or not — so a partial settlement shows up in the merchant's note on the request rather than as an amount. Ask the merchant to confirm the figure in writing before you send anything back.

If what arrived is damaged, is not what you ordered, or is missing, tell the merchant as soon as you can and keep the packaging.

This is the merchant's responsibility as the seller, whatever their general return window says. [[ TODO: legal review — a buyer's statutory rights over defective or non-conforming goods, and any minimum period a merchant's policy cannot shorten ]]

Ask the merchant to cancel. A cancelled order is a cleaner outcome than a return for both sides.

Cancelling also reverses the platform-side records attached to the order — the merchant's commission on it, and any loyalty points it earned or spent.

Points earned by an order, and points spent on it, are reversed when the order is cancelled.

They are not reversed when an order is refunded but left in place. If your return is settled as a refund rather than a cancellation, ask the merchant to adjust the points too. [[ TODO: business decision — whether a refunded return should reverse loyalty points and commission the way a cancellation does; today only cancellation reverses them ]]

A discount code applied to an order is used up when the order is placed. Whether it is reissued after a return is the merchant's decision.

A dispute about a purchase is between you and the merchant.

If you get nowhere, contact us. We can supply the records we hold — the order, the return request and its history — and we can raise it with the merchant. We cannot order a refund and we cannot pay one.

Where a merchant repeatedly fails their own published policy, we can act on their account under the terms of service. That does not get your money back. [[ TODO: legal review — a buyer's route of complaint under the applicable consumer law, and the authority they can escalate to ]]

A merchant may refuse a return request that falls outside their published policy, and may act on a pattern of abusive returns.

Using return requests to defraud a merchant breaches the terms of service and can end an account.

Paid plans are invoiced per cycle — monthly or yearly — for the coming cycle, in US dollars.

There is no free trial. The free plan is how you try the platform without paying.

Closing a store stops future invoices. It does not by itself refund a cycle already paid.

A store suspended for an unpaid invoice, or for a breach of the terms, is not credited for the days it was offline. [[ TODO: legal review — whether part of a cycle is refundable, any first-invoice guarantee, and mandatory refund rights that cannot be waived ]]

An upgrade applies to what your store can do straight away, while the new fee applies from your next cycle and is not prorated. You are not charged twice for the same cycle, and you are not credited for the higher tier arriving mid-cycle.

To move to a lower plan, contact us; the change takes effect from a later cycle, and the difference for the cycle you are in is not refunded.

Commission is recorded when an order is placed, at the rate of the store's plan, on the order total including tax, and separately per currency.

An order that is cancelled reverses its commission automatically: an offsetting entry is written so the two net to zero.

An order that is refunded without being cancelled keeps its commission. Where a return ends in a refund and the goods came back, cancel the order rather than only marking the return refunded. [[ TODO: business decision + legal review — commission on partial refunds, on deliveries refused at the door that are recorded as refunds rather than cancellations, and on orders later found to be fraudulent ]]

Commission is currently recorded and reported, not collected.

A discount code applied to a subscription reduces the fee on the invoices it covers. A discount already applied is not paid out in cash and cannot be transferred to anyone else.

Closing a store ends the code's remaining cycles; they are not refunded and do not carry over.

We update this page when our practices change, with a new “last updated” date at the top. A change here does not alter a merchant's own published return policy, which stays theirs to set.