Refunds and cancellation

For context, because the refund position depends on it.

All prices include VAT or applicable sales tax. Refunds include the tax you paid.

You can create an account, build the whole event, set up the guest list, write the programme and configure RSVP without paying anything. Payment happens when you are ready to go live.

This belongs in a refund policy, because it removes most of the situations where a refund would be the remedy. If you are not sure Twirl is right for you, build it first and decide afterwards. Nobody should be finding out what they bought after they bought it.

3.1What the law gives you

If you are a consumer in the EU, the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU), implemented in the Netherlands in Books 6 and 7 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek, gives you 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason. UK consumers have an equivalent right under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The period runs from the day the contract is concluded, which here is the moment your payment succeeds.

This right exists whatever the rest of this policy says. Nothing below reduces it.

3.2The exception for services that have started

The withdrawal right has an exception where performance began at your express request during the withdrawal period, and where you acknowledged that beginning would affect the right. Both parts are required. An express request alone is not enough, and an acknowledgement buried inside a general acceptance of terms does not count.

Twirl starts working immediately, because that is the point of buying it. So we ask for that request and that acknowledgement at checkout, as a separate tick box. Section 6 sets out the wording.

If you withdraw within the 14 days after your guests have started uploading, we may deduct an amount proportionate to what has already been provided rather than refusing outright. In practice that deduction is small, because two months is a long window and most of it is still ahead of you.

3.3How to withdraw

Email hello@twirl.photos within 14 days and say you are withdrawing. A clear statement is enough. You do not have to use a form, give a reason, or justify yourself. The model withdrawal form from Annex I(B) of the Consumer Rights Directive is reproduced in Annex A if you would prefer one.

We refund within 14 days of receiving your notice, to the same payment method you used, at no cost to you.

This is our own commitment and it goes beyond what the law requires. It is also the tier that resolves nearly every real case.

4.1The guarantee

If your event has not been used, we refund you in full, on request, with no time limit.

"Not used" means exactly what it sounds like, and we can check it in seconds:

• No guest has uploaded a photograph, video or voice memo, and
• No guest has submitted an RSVP. Nothing else is considered. Building the event, importing a guest list, writing a programme, sending out the link and looking at the dashboard do not count as use. Those are things you do before the event goes live, and if it never went live you should not be paying for it.

You do not have to explain why. Wedding cancelled, changed your mind, bought the wrong thing, decided to use something else. Same answer to all of them.

4.2Why the line sits there

Because it is the point at which you have actually received something. Once your guests start uploading, the service has done the thing you paid it to do. Before that, we are holding money for a product you never opened.

Once there are uploads or RSVPs in your event, the product has been delivered and there is no entitlement to a refund. The window is running, your guests have contributed, and the thing you bought has happened.

That is the formal position, stated plainly rather than left vague. Three things sit alongside it:

• Section 8 still applies in full. If the service was actually defective, meaning uploads failed, the gallery was unavailable when you needed it, an advertised feature did not work, or Content was lost through our fault, you have rights that have nothing to do with this section and do not expire.
• If you are still inside the 14 days, section 3 comes first. Your statutory withdrawal right is not affected by this section and may give you more than it does. Where it applies, we deduct only an amount proportionate to what has been provided.
• We are reasonable. If something happened that does not fit neatly into any of the above, write to hello@twirl.photos and tell us what it was. We read every message and we are not looking to win arguments over twenty five euro about somebody's wedding. But this is discretion on our part, exercised case by case. It is not a right you can enforce, and we will say no to a request that is clearly not made in good faith.

Recorded here so that what you agreed to is documented in the same place as the policy that depends on it.

That second sentence is the Tier 2 guarantee restated at the moment of purchase, so nobody has to find this page to know it exists.

• Extensions are bought manually, one at a time. Nothing renews automatically, there is no subscription running in the background, and you will never be charged for an extension you did not actively buy.
• Each extension is a separate purchase and the tiers above apply to it in the same way. Tier 2 for an extension means the extra time has not yet begun to run.
• If you buy an extension by mistake, or immediately regret it before any of the extra time has been used, email us and we will refund it. This is routine and we do not need an explanation.
• We do not refund an extension that has run its course and delivered the extra time you bought.

Separate from everything above, and not limited by it. Under Dutch and EU consumer law a service must conform to what was agreed and to what you could reasonably expect. If it does not, you can require us to fix it, and if we cannot, you can get money back.

This right does not expire after 14 days, is not affected by whether your event has been used, and nothing in this policy limits it.

If Content is lost through our fault, section 15.2 of the Terms of Service sets out what we will do: refund what you paid for that event, and give the event back with at least three free months so you have real time to ask your guests to upload again. That remedy is in addition to your statutory rights, not instead of them.

Kept short deliberately.

• A window that ran its full length and did what it was supposed to do.
• An event that has been used, subject to sections 3, 5 and 8.
• Content deleted because you chose "close now", or because you let the window lapse after being warned more than once. We are sorry, we cannot recover it, and a refund would not bring it back.
• An account terminated for a serious breach of the Acceptable Use section of the Terms of Service.
• Third party costs you incurred that were not paid to us, such as a bank's currency conversion fee.

Refunds go to the original payment method. If that card has expired or been closed, tell us and we will work out an alternative. VAT is refunded with the rest and you will receive a credit note.

Come to us first at hello@twirl.photos. If we cannot sort it out within 30 days, consumers in the EU have access to alternative dispute resolution and to the courts.

We are not a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme. If you want to pursue a complaint outside the courts, the European Commission maintains a list of national consumer dispute resolution bodies at consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu.

You can also bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live. Nothing in this policy affects that.

hello@twirl.photos for anything on this page.

Ciceroni VOF, Franklinstraat 161, 2562 CD Den Haag, the Netherlands. KVK 76619176. VAT NL860705626B01.

You can also download this form as a PDF. Reproduced from Annex I(B) of Directive 2011/83/EU, adapted with our details. Complete and return this form only if you wish to withdraw from the contract.

To: Ciceroni VOF, Franklinstraat 161, 2562 CD Den Haag, the Netherlands, hello@twirl.photos

I hereby give notice that I withdraw from my contract for the supply of the following service:

• Ordered on: ______________________
• Name of consumer: ______________________
• Address of consumer: ______________________
• Order or event reference: ______________________
• Signature (only if this form is notified on paper): ______________________
• Date: ______________________