Refund & Cancellation Policy

1. Overview

This Refund & Cancellation Policy explains when refunds are available on the Worqen Service, how to request one, and the EU consumer rights that apply where you are an individual consumer in the European Union or the European Economic Area. It supplements the Terms of Service and the Fees & Charges Schedule.

2. What this Policy covers

• Worqs (in-app credits) where they have been purchased for real money;
• Subscription and premium-tier fees, when introduced;
• Engagements between Workers and Employers settled through Worqen escrow;
• Disputed transactions and chargebacks.

It does not cover taxes (including VAT) collected by tax authorities, network fees (gas) paid to the Solana blockchain, or charges levied by your bank, card issuer or wallet provider.

3. EU consumer right of withdrawal (14-day cooling-off)

If you are an individual consumer ordinarily resident in the European Union or the EEA, the EU Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/EU) gives you the right to withdraw from a contract for digital content or digital services within 14 days, without giving any reason and without penalty.

3.1 How to withdraw

Send a clear, dated statement to [email protected] stating that you are withdrawing from the contract. You may use the model EU withdrawal form. We will refund the amount paid using the same payment method you used, no later than 14 days after receiving your withdrawal notice.

3.2 Loss of the right to withdraw

Under Article 16(m) of the Consumer Rights Directive, you lose the right to withdraw from a contract for digital content or digital services where:

• performance has begun with your prior express consent;
• you have acknowledged that you will lose your right of withdrawal once performance has fully begun;
• (for digital content not on a tangible medium) we have provided confirmation of that consent.

The Worqs checkout presents a single, clearly labelled tickbox that you must check, before the purchase button is enabled, to confirm that you request immediate access and consent that you lose your 14-day cooling-off right with respect to the Worqs you actually consume. We record that consent against your order. If you do not check the tickbox, the purchase does not go ahead — Worqen does not currently offer a delayed-delivery checkout that preserves the cooling-off period while still completing the sale, so nothing is purchased and no cooling-off right is at issue until you do.

3.3 Worqs pricing

Worqs are available for purchase for $0.10 per Worq, payable in USDC, USDT, EURC or SOL at the prevailing exchange rate for non-stablecoin payment. Current pricing and payment currencies are also shown at the point of purchase and in the Fees & Charges Schedule.

4. Escrow, dispute outcomes and refunds

When an Employer funds an escrow, the deposited amount and the applicable commission are held in a Solana program vault until released. Refunds out of escrow can occur in three ways:

• Mutual cancellation — both parties agree, before any funds are released, to cancel the engagement. The deposit and the commission are returned in full to the Employer. No additional fee applies.
• Dispute resolution — see the Disputes & Resolution Policy. Where a dispute results in funds being refunded to the Employer (in whole or part), Worqen also refunds the commission attributable to the refunded portion.
• Administrative-release reversal (fixed-price engagements) — for fixed-price engagements, if a discretionary administrative release under Section 4.1 of the Fees & Charges Schedule was issued in error and either party opens a dispute within 7 days of release, Worqen may re-open the escrow review process. This reversal path applies to fixed-price milestones only. For hourly (GWS) engagements there is no post-release reversal: the dispute window falls before a weekly tranche is finalised, and once a weekly tranche has been finalised it is released on-chain and is irreversible. See Section 6a (Hourly disputes) of the Disputes & Resolution Policy.

Funds that have actually been released and transferred on-chain to a Worker are not refundable by Worqen, because the underlying Solana transaction is irreversible. In that situation, your remedies lie either in dispute resolution under the Terms of Service or in proceedings against the Worker directly.

Escrow refunds are made on-chain in the same cryptocurrency asset that was deposited — the same token, on the Solana network — in the amount determined by the applicable refund path above. They are not converted to, and do not guarantee, any fiat value: the value of that asset may change between the time of deposit and the time of refund. The cryptocurrency and wallet risks described in Section 8.4 (Cryptocurrency and Wallet Risks) of the Terms of Service apply to refunds in the same way as to deposits and releases.

A refund out of escrow is returned to the funding wallet of record — the Employer wallet address recorded in the escrow at the time it was funded. The escrow program is configured to return funds only to that recorded address; Worqen does not hold the funds and cannot direct a refund to a different or substitute wallet. If you lose control of that wallet, lose its private key or recovery phrase, or its security is compromised, a refund paid to it may be unrecoverable. Because Solana transactions are irreversible and Worqen is non-custodial, we cannot recover, reissue or redirect such a refund — this is a consequence of self-custody, as described in Section 8.4 of the Terms of Service. Keep the wallet you fund an escrow from secure and under your sole control for the duration of the engagement.

5. Re-hire credit guarantee

Where, following the dispute process, we determine on the available evidence that a Worker did not deliver the agreed work and the Employer did not receive value, we may offer the Employer a re-hire credit equal to the affected amount, usable on the Service for 90 days. This credit is offered as a goodwill gesture; it is not a refund of fiat or crypto and it is not a contractual entitlement.

6. Chargebacks and reversed payments

If you initiate a chargeback through your card issuer or bank in respect of a payment for which you have already received the corresponding service or Worqs, we may suspend your account, deduct an equivalent amount from any other balance you hold on the Service, and treat the chargeback as a breach of the Terms of Service. We will not initiate chargebacks on your behalf; please address card disputes through your issuer in the first instance, and contact us in parallel so we can resolve the underlying issue.

7. Items that are not refundable

• Worqs that have already been consumed (subject to Section 3);
• Released escrow funds (subject to Section 4);
• Fees disclosed at the time of purchase as non-refundable, where you have explicitly waived the cooling-off right;
• Solana network fees (gas);
• Card-issuer or bank fees, foreign-exchange spreads.

8. How to request a refund

Email [email protected] with:

• Your account email and User ID;
• The transaction reference (escrow ID, payment ID or Worqs order number);
• The reason for the request;
• Any supporting evidence.

We will acknowledge receipt within 48 hours and provide a substantive response within 14 days. Where the request triggers a dispute under the Disputes & Resolution Policy, those longer SLAs apply.

9. Non-EU consumers

Consumers outside the EU/EEA do not have the statutory 14-day cooling-off right described in Section 3. The escrow, dispute and re-hire credit provisions in Sections 4–5 apply equally. Mandatory consumer-protection laws of your place of residence will apply where they cannot be waived by contract.

10. Contact

Refund and billing questions: [email protected].