Cancelling, and what you get back.

Your seven-day cooling-off right, and its limits

Because you are buying from us online, section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gives you seven days to cancel without giving a reason and without penalty.

That right does not cover everything we do. Section 42(2) of the same Act lists transactions it does not apply to, and two of those cover most of our work:

• Services you asked us to start before the seven days were up (section 42(2)(d)). Once you have told us to begin and we have begun, the seven-day right no longer covers the work already done.
• Work made to your specification or clearly personalised (section 42(2)(f)) — a logo, brand assets or design files built to your brief cannot be returned to stock and resold to someone else.

So the practical position is this. If you have paid a deposit and we have not started, you get the full amount back — no reason needed, and we will not try to talk you out of it. If you asked us to start and we did, the seven-day right does not undo the work already performed. What happens then is set out below.

What changes once work has started

You pay a 50% deposit to start. Once you have asked us to begin and we have begun, that deposit is committed to hours actually worked.

This is not us being difficult — the deposit has been spent on hours that cannot be un-worked.

What you can still do

You can cancel a project at any point, even mid-build. What happens then:

• We stop work immediately and invoice for what has actually been done up to that point.
• If the work completed is worth less than your deposit, we refund the difference.
• If it is worth more, we will tell you before you decide, and we will not chase you for the shortfall on a small overrun.
• You get everything produced up to that point, once the work done has been paid for.

We will always show you the working — what was done, how long it took, what it comes to — rather than just keeping the deposit.

Cancellation charges

Where you cancel work already commissioned, section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act allows us to charge a reasonable cancellation charge. What counts as reasonable depends on the nature of the work, how much notice you gave, whether we can fill the slot with another client, and ordinary practice in this industry.

We do not apply a flat penalty. We charge for work actually performed up to the point you cancelled, measured against the deposit you have already paid, and we show you the working.

We will not charge a cancellation charge where the cancellation follows the death or hospitalisation of the person the work was commissioned for — section 17(5) does not permit it, and we would not ask.

How to cancel

Put it in writing so there is a record for both of us:

• Email hello@moshapodigitalstudio.co.za, or
• WhatsApp 068 008 3342

Say that you want to cancel and give us your name and the project. You do not have to give a reason. We will acknowledge it in writing and confirm what happens next, including any refund amount.

When you get the money

Where a refund is due, we pay it within 30 days of the cancellation, as the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act requires. In practice it is usually a few days.

Refunds go back to the account the payment came from. We do not charge an administration fee for processing a refund.

What is not refundable

• Work already completed. Hours spent designing and building cannot be returned.
• Third-party costs already paid. Domain registration, hosting, paid fonts, stock images or plugins bought for your project are non-refundable, because we cannot get that money back either. We will always tell you before spending anything on your behalf.
• Completed and delivered projects. Once a project is finished, handed over and paid for, it is done. If something is genuinely broken or not what was agreed, that is a fix and we will fix it — that is different from a refund.
• A change of mind about the design. This is what the revision rounds are for. Use them.

If we cancel

Occasionally we may need to end a project — if the scope turns out to be something we cannot do properly, or if the working relationship is not viable. If that happens, we refund everything you have paid for work not yet done, and hand over whatever has been completed at no charge.

If you are unhappy with the outcome

Tell us first — email hello@moshapodigitalstudio.co.za. If we cannot resolve it between us, you can approach the National Consumer Commission or a South African court. Nothing on this page removes a right you have under the Consumer Protection Act.

Our full terms are on the Terms of Service page.