Refund Policy

This policy explains when you can get your money back for an audio plugin bought from smokingmedia.com, how to ask for it, and what happens to your licence afterwards. It forms part of our terms of sale.

In short

• Our plugins are downloadable software, delivered immediately as a licence key by email.
• EU consumers have a 14 day right of withdrawal for digital content, but that right ends as soon as delivery begins with your consent, which for us is the moment the checkout completes. Section 2 explains this properly.
• Even so, we would rather refund you than keep money from someone who cannot use what they bought. Section 3 says when we will.
• Refunds are processed by Paddle, the seller of record for your transaction.
• A refund revokes the licence. The plugin stops working the next time it refreshes.
• Where a product has a free Lite edition, install it first. It is a real product with no time limit and no nag, so you can find out whether the plugin runs in your setup before you spend anything.

1. Your statutory right of withdrawal

If you are a consumer in the European Union, the Consumer Rights Directive normally gives you 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason. In the Netherlands this is the “recht op ontbinding” in Book 6 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek.

That right applies to digital content too, with one important exception, which is the subject of the next section.

2. Why immediate delivery changes this

For digital content that is not supplied on a physical medium, the right of withdrawal falls away once performance has begun, provided that:

1. you gave your express prior consent for delivery to start immediately, before the withdrawal period had run its course; and
2. you acknowledged that by doing so you would lose your right of withdrawal; and
3. we confirmed the contract to you.

Our checkout asks you for exactly that consent and that acknowledgement before you pay, because your licence key is generated and emailed to you within seconds of the payment completing. There is no way for us to deliver a licence key gradually, or to take it back.

So: once your licence key has been sent, the statutory right of withdrawal no longer applies. If you complete the checkout and we have not yet delivered anything, the right does still apply, and you can withdraw by writing to TODO_SUPPORT_EMAIL.

This is the standard position for downloadable software across the industry. It is also the reason we publish free Lite editions: so you can try the real thing on your own machine, in your own host, without spending anything and without needing this policy at all.

3. When we will refund you anyway

The paragraphs above describe the legal floor, not our practice. We will normally refund a purchase, at our discretion, when:

• the plugin does not run in your setup and we cannot get it working with you;
• there is a fault we cannot fix in a reasonable time;
• you bought the same product twice by accident, or bought the wrong product;
• you were charged after asking us to cancel;
• something went wrong at our end.

Ask, and tell us what happened. We would rather have an honest conversation than a chargeback.

We will not normally refund a purchase where the reason is that you changed your mind after using the product, or that you did not read the system requirements on the product page before buying.

4. Your rights if the software is faulty

Separately from any of the above, and separately from anything you consented to at checkout, EU and Dutch consumer law gives you rights when digital content does not conform to the contract: broadly, the right to have it brought into conformity, and, where that fails or is disproportionate, the right to a price reduction or to end the contract and get your money back.

Nothing in this policy limits those rights. If the plugin is genuinely broken, you are not relying on our goodwill.

5. How to ask for a refund

Email TODO_SUPPORT_EMAIL and include:

• the email address you used at checkout;
• the Paddle order or transaction reference from your receipt;
• the product name;
• what went wrong.

You can also contact Paddle directly, because Paddle is the seller of record for your transaction and handles billing enquiries for it. Either route works.

If you have a technical problem, please try support first, or just describe the problem in your refund email. Most refund requests we expect to receive are really installation problems, and those are usually fixed in one reply.

6. How the refund is paid

Refunds are processed by Paddle, TODO_PADDLE_MERCHANT_OF_RECORD_ENTITY, who took the original payment as merchant of record. We do not hold your card details and cannot refund you directly.

The money goes back to the payment method you used. Paddle refunds the tax it collected along with the price. How long the credit takes to appear depends on your bank or payment provider, and is usually a few working days.

7. What a refund does to your licence

This part matters, so it is written plainly.

A refund revokes your entitlement to the product. When Paddle tells us that a transaction has been refunded, we mark the entitlement behind your licence key as revoked. Two things follow:

1. The licence key stops working for new activations immediately. Activating it on another machine will fail.
2. On machines where the plugin is already activated, the plugin stops working at its next licence refresh. The plugin verifies its licence file locally and refreshes that file periodically, so the change is not instantaneous. It takes effect the next time the plugin checks in.

We do not reach into your computer, we do not delete anything, and we do not interrupt a session you have open. The plugin simply stops being licensed.

After a refund you must stop using the paid edition and remove it from your machines. Any Lite edition of the same product is unaffected and stays free to use, forever.

Projects you made while the licence was valid are yours and stay yours. If you reopen one after a refund, the paid plugin will not be licensed, so those tracks will not play back as they did. Bounce or freeze anything you need before asking for a refund.

8. Chargebacks

If you file a chargeback with your bank rather than contacting us, the entitlement is revoked in the same way as for a refund, and we may decline future purchases from the same account.

Please write to TODO_SUPPORT_EMAIL first. A chargeback costs us a fee, costs you several weeks, and cannot be reversed once it is under way. Almost anything you would file a chargeback over, we can settle in a day by email.

9. Business customers

If you are buying in the course of a business, the statutory right of withdrawal in section 1 does not apply to you at all, because it is a consumer right. Sections 3 and 4 still describe how we handle faults and mistakes.

10. Questions

Email TODO_SUPPORT_EMAIL. Our full registered details are in the business details block below.