Refund Policy

01What you paid for

A booking total is made of two parts — three, if you paid GST — and they behave differently. You saw this split on the checkout page before you paid.

Session fee

90% of the fee, before tax. The coach or academy’s share, for the demo session itself. Fully refundable if the session never happens.

Platform fee

10% of the fee, before tax. Ours, for finding and vetting the coach and for putting you in touch. Non-refundable.

GST

18% on top of the fee, charged whenever you are in India, wherever the coach is, and paid to the government rather than kept by anyone. Refunded in proportion: whatever part of the fee comes back, the GST charged on that part comes back with it.

02When we refund

There are exactly two grounds, and both are about the session not happening at all:

• They never got in touch.You paid, you have the coach’s contact, and no session was ever arranged with you.
• They didn’t show up. A time was agreed and the session did not happen.

In either case, if we agree the session did not happen, you get the whole session fee — 90% of the fee, and the GST charged on that part if you paid any — back to the card or account you paid from. Your bookings page shows the exact rupee or dollar figure for your booking, so you are never guessing.

The coach is paid nothing on a refunded booking. Money is deliberately held until your window below has shut, so that a refund is still possible when you report it.

03When we don't

We are strict about this, because a refund for anything other than non-delivery would come out of a coach who did the work.

• The session happened and you were disappointed. A coach who turned up and taught badly gets a bad review from you — that is what reviews are for, and only students who booked can leave one. It is not a refund.
• You got a different trainer than you asked for. When you book an academy you can state a preference, and the academy sees it, but the academy assigns the trainer based on your level and who is free. You agreed to this at checkout.
• You changed your mind, or stopped wanting lessons after seeing the contact details.
• The coach could not reach you. If the phone number or email you gave us does not work, or you did not reply, the coach has not failed to deliver.
• Something went wrong after the demo. Ongoing lessons you arrange privately with a coach are not paid for through ChessDial and cannot be refunded by us. Take that up with the coach.
• You reported it too late. See the window below.

04How to ask

Go to Bookings, find the booking, and press Report a problem. Pick which of the two grounds applies and tell us what happened. It takes a minute and there is no form to download.

Window opens

The day your session is marked complete, or day 7 after you pay, whichever comes first. Coaches get 7 days to arrange something, so before then the session may simply still be coming — but you never have to wait longer than that to be heard.

Window closes

7 days after the session is marked complete, whether that was the coach, the academy or us. We email you the day it is marked, and that email carries the exact closing date, so you are never counting days on your own.

If nobody marks it

We mark it complete 14 days after you pay, and your 7 days run from then. A session nobody ever gets round to marking does not quietly expire on you.

If it is rescheduled

Your window starts over. When a coach puts a new session date on a booking they had marked complete, the old window is thrown away and a fresh 7 days run from the new session — so agreeing to a second attempt never costs you the right to report it.

Cost to you

Nothing. Reporting a problem is free and does not affect your account.

Your bookings page shows where each of your bookings stands, and the closing date as soon as there is one, so you do not have to count days. If you have missed the window and something genuinely went wrong, write to us anyway — see section 9.

05How we decide

A person on our team reads it. We ask the coach or academy to respond, and then we answer one question: did the session happen?

• A coach who does not respond loses. We do not need their cooperation to refund you.
• If we agree with you, the session fee is refunded and the coach is paid nothing for that booking.
• If we do not, we tell you why, and the booking goes back on the coach’s payout track.

Either way, upheld disputes count against a coach’s public reliability figures — so a pattern shows up on their profile, not just in our records.

06How the money comes back

Always to the original payment method — the card, UPI ID, wallet or account you paid from. We cannot redirect a refund somewhere else, and we never refund in credits or vouchers.

• Indian payments are refunded through Razorpay and typically appear within 5 to 7 working days of approval.
• International payments are refunded through Stripe, usually within 5 to 10 working days, depending on your bank.

The time after that is your bank’s, not ours. If a refund we have confirmed has not landed after ten working days, write to us with your booking reference and we will chase it with the gateway.

07Cancelling a booking

A booking cannot be cancelled once it is paid for, for the reason in section 1 — payment reveals the contact immediately, and there is nothing left to cancel.

If you start a payment and abandon it, you are not charged and no contact is revealed. If money left your account but your booking does not appear, do not pay again — write to us and we will reconcile it with the gateway.

Bookings outside India are taken in US dollars through Stripe, and a refund goes back the same way, to the card you paid with.

08If you are the coach or academy

A refund to a student means that booking pays you nothing. Earnings settle 7days after the session is marked complete — the day the student’s window above shuts — and a booking under an open dispute is held until it is decided. Payouts then run on the 8th of each month, and each run pays every session marked complete up to the last day of the month before — see section 7 of the Terms.

The single thing that protects you here is getting in touch quickly. Arrange something within 7 days, and mark the session date on your dashboard when you agree it — that date is your evidence if a student later says nothing was ever arranged. Then mark the session complete once it has happened: that is what starts the clock on your own money.

Keep a screenshot. When a session happens, take one — the video call window, or the chat where you and the student agreed the time and confirmed it afterwards. Keep it until at least 7 daysafter you mark the session complete, when the student’s window for reporting a problem closes. It costs you nothing on the day and it is the difference between your word and evidence if a session you actually taught is later reported as never having happened.

If a dispute is decided against you and you think we got it wrong, reply to the decision email. We will look again.

09Still stuck?

If the window has closed, your refund has not arrived, or something happened that the two grounds above do not describe, talk to us. We would rather hear it than have you write off the money.

• Email support@chessbase.in with your booking reference.
• Or press the Feedback button in the corner of any page, leave us a way to reach you, and we will get in touch.

Nothing in this policy takes away your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Our grievance details are in section 17 of the Terms of Service.