Refund Policy

What is a ‘refund’?

When something goes wrong with a transaction (i.e. funds are sent to a wrong network), we can either forward the funds to a merchant or send them back to a customer on a request. This is called a refund.

Common refund cases

A transaction may get stuck in the system due to a number of reasons. Here are the most common cases when a refund is necessary:

1) A deposit was sent in a wrong network (i.e. in BEP-20 instead of ERC20);
2) An amount of funds our system received is less than a minimum one (but still more than one network fee);
3) A deposit was sent in a different crypto currency (i.e. a customer chose BNBBSC as a pay currency but sent BUSDBSC instead);
4) A deposit was sent without a memo/a destination tag (this applies to such currencies as BNBMAINNET, XRP, AVA, EOS, XLM).

I am a merchant and I want to receive a refund. What should I do?

First, you should contact our support team at [email protected]. In refund cases we offer several options to our partners:

1) sending the funds to your outcome address if it’s valid in a particular network (in which the deposit was sent);
2) sending the funds to your provided address after a validation process.

You can validate yourself by a dust transaction.

What is a dust transaction?

It’s a process of sending a very little amount of crypto (lower than a minimal amount for transaction) to an address provided by NOWPayments support team. It’s needed to validate you as a person who has really taken part in the initial transaction. This is one of the measures of anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-fraud policy we conduct.

When we validate our partner, we ask them to send some dust from their outcome address - it’s the address the payment was supposed to be received to.

What if my customers often send funds in a wrong network? Do I have to validate myself each time?

To make a refund process more convenient and time-effective, we’ve introduced a Partnership Agreement. A Partnership Agreement is a safe and reliable way of whitelisting Merchant’s addresses. You can add all addresses you want to be used for refunds on the last page. In future you won’t need to go through a validation process each time a refund case occurs. After the Agreement is signed, we add your addresses to our database. When something goes wrong, we send the funds to one of them depending on the currency.

Please note that when adding the addresses you confirm that you take all possible fraud and legal risks.

I am a customer, my payment failed, and I want to get my money back. What are the steps?

You should contact our support team at [email protected]. If it’s possible to send the funds back to the initial address from which you paid, we’ll be happy to do it. Otherwise we’ll offer several validation options:

1) a dust transaction from the initial address to a deposit address provided by our support team: you’ll need to send the smallest amount possible in crypto from the same address you used to pay;
2) KYC: we’ll send you a link to a procedure and you’ll provide required information (email, passport/ID, etc.). You can learn more about this procedure here;
3) a video record: you’ll need to enter your account and show us the information about this particular transaction - the sum, the hash, the address and the date;
4) a video call: our support team will set up a call at a time convenient for you and ask you to show the information mentioned above.

Please, don’t worry if some of the options sound too complicated for you - you’ll receive detailed instructions on how to undergo each procedure from our support team.

Network fee: why and when do we ask you to cover it?

Network fees are necessary to keep a confirmation flow of a particular blockchain consistent and smooth. To put it simply, a network fee is money paid to the blockchain to help it run. For regular payments network fees are charged automatically during processing.

When a deposit gets stuck in the system due to a wrong network, the funds are extracted and forwarded to a relevant address manually, and automatic charging is not possible. In this case, we kindly ask a partner/a customer to cover a network fee by sending a precise amount of crypto. Please note that it varies depending on the network.

If for some reason a larger amount is sent, in most cases we are able to refund the rest of funds along with the main deposit. Once a network fee is covered, we initiate a refund.

I am a merchant, I received the payment, but I want to refund my customer. How can I do it?

Sometimes customers ask for refunds because they change their mind on the purchase, the item doesn’t fit them, etc. In the traditional economy, you can simply reverse the payment, and this will complete the refund. In crypto, it’s a bit different. Since NOWPayments is a non-custodial service, we do not store your funds and have no control over them. If you want to make a refund, we can’t initiate it since all the money you received from a customer is in your crypto wallet. We don’t have access to it, but the refund has to go from your crypto wallet. Therefore, to make a refund, simply send your customer the required amount of money from your crypto wallet. You can check the exact sum in your Account, you can use Payment ID to find it.

If your customer wants to change an address, s/he will need to send dust from the initial address or to pass a KYC procedure with a link provided, and cover a network fee.

How long will it take to receive a refund?

It depends on the overall difficulty of your case. You can learn more about our time frames from our Service Quality Standards here.

When a refund is impossible?

Every case is handled individually. In cases of non-convertible transactions, a possibility of a refund depends on whether our support team can extract the funds. Nevertheless, you should always contact us at [email protected], and we will do our best to help you.