Refund Policy

1. Summary

2. Your statutory rights

As a consumer in the United Kingdom you have rights under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

For distance contracts you normally have 14 days to cancel from the day the contract is formed. Courses are digital content supplied immediately. Under the Regulations, the right to cancel digital content can be lost once supply begins, provided you gave your express consent to immediate access and acknowledged that you would lose that right. When you complete a purchase and start a course straight away, that is the consent and acknowledgement we rely on.

Even where the statutory cancellation right no longer applies, we voluntarily offer the refund guarantee in section 3. Nothing in this policy affects your rights where digital content is faulty, not as described, or not of satisfactory quality.

3. Our 14-day refund guarantee

We will refund the price you paid for a course where all of the following apply:

• you ask us within 14 calendar days of the date of purchase;
• the request is the first refund request for that course on your account;
• you have not redistributed, resold or shared the course materials, and you are not in breach of our Terms of Service;
• the course has not been purchased on your behalf by someone else with a separate refund already issued for it.

You do not need to explain why you want a refund. If you have already downloaded worksheets or completed some lessons, that is fine — the guarantee still applies within the 14-day window.

4. How to request a refund

Email hello@merkel.academy with the subject "Refund request" and include:

• the email address on your merkel.academy account; and
• the name of the course you want refunded (and your order reference if you have it).

We will confirm receipt within two working days and let you know the outcome. If your request is within the guarantee, we will approve it.

5. How refunds are paid

Refunds are issued through Stripe to the original payment method. Once we approve a refund we process it immediately; the money usually reaches your account within 5 to 10 business days, depending on your bank or card issuer. Banks can sometimes take longer, and we cannot control their timescales.

When we refund a course, your access to that course ends. Any certificate or completed progress for it is removed from your dashboard.

6. When we may decline a refund

Outside the 14-day guarantee, and where the law does not require otherwise, we may decline a refund. We may also decline a request that falls within the window if we reasonably believe it is an abuse of the policy, for example:

• repeated purchases and refunds of many different courses on the same account;
• evidence that course materials have been copied, shared, resold or published;
• use of a stolen or unauthorised payment method.

This section never applies where a course is faulty or misdescribed — in that case your statutory rights always apply, as explained in section 7.

7. Faulty or misdescribed courses

Digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If a course does not meet those standards — for example if videos will not play, files are corrupted, or the course is materially different from its description — you are entitled to a remedy under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Contact us at hello@merkel.academy describing the problem. We will first try to repair or replace the content. If we cannot do so within a reasonable time, or if that is not possible, you are entitled to a price reduction or a full refund. These rights apply regardless of the 14-day period and cannot be waived.

8. If we discontinue a course

If we permanently withdraw a course you have purchased within a reasonable time of your purchase, we will offer you a proportionate refund or access to an equivalent course, as described in our Terms of Service.

9. Chargebacks

If you are unhappy with a purchase, please contact us before asking your bank or card issuer to raise a chargeback. We can usually resolve things much faster, and a chargeback may delay any refund while the dispute is investigated.

10. Contact us

For any question about refunds or cancellations, email hello@merkel.academy. We aim to reply within one working day.