Refund Policy

Trots Oudtshoorn offers refunds and service credits on a case-by-case basis for paid upgrades and paid ad slots (Verified, Promoted, Featured, Standard Ad, Promo/Deal Ad, and Daily Promotions).

Refund requests must be submitted within 14 days of the payment confirmation date. Service-outage credit requests must be submitted within 7 days of the outage (see Section 3).

All refunds and credits are processed at the discretion of the Trots Oudtshoorn team, guided by this policy.

You may be eligible for a refund if:

The paid upgrade or ad was activated incorrectly due to a system error.

The upgrade was purchased by mistake and has not yet been activated.

The business listing was removed or suspended through no fault of your own.

Refunds are not automatic — each request is reviewed individually.

If the app is unavailable during a period when your paid ad or upgrade should have been live, you may be entitled to a credit, on the following scale:

Under 4 consecutive hours down: no credit — this is normal operational variance for a service of this size.

4–24 consecutive hours down within a single 7-day ad cycle: automatic 1-day extension of that ad's run, at no cost.

More than 24 hours cumulative downtime within a single cycle: your choice of a longer extension, or a partial credit toward your next cycle's payment — contact support to arrange.

This applies to all outages affecting the app or its backend, regardless of whether the cause was within our direct control (including outages at our hosting/database providers) — but our responsibility is limited to the value of the affected ad slot, never more than what was actually paid.

Planned maintenance announced at least 24 hours in advance does not count as downtime for this purpose.

To claim an outage credit, contact support within 7 days of the outage with the affected ad/upgrade and the approximate dates and times it was unavailable.

The following are not eligible for a refund or credit:

Standard business listings (these are free and have no cost to refund).

Featured, Promoted, or Verified upgrades, or an ad slot, that has already run its full course as purchased.

Refund requests submitted more than 14 days after the payment confirmation date, or outage-credit requests submitted more than 7 days after the outage.

Any listing, advert, or account that was removed or suspended due to a violation of the Terms of Service — for example, a fake job posting, impersonating a business, submitting a false weather alert, manipulating view/like counts, or using multiple accounts to bypass pricing or a prior suspension. Misuse forfeits the payment, it does not entitle you to a refund of it.

Downtime under the 4-hour threshold in Section 3.

To request a refund or outage credit, contact our support team with:

Your full name and registered email address.

The date and amount of the payment, or the affected ad/upgrade.

A brief explanation of why you are requesting a refund or credit (including, for outages, the approximate dates/times).

Our team will review your request and respond within 5 business days.

Approved cash refunds will be processed via bank transfer to the account from which the original payment was made.

Refunds may take up to 10 business days to reflect in your account after approval.

We do not offer cash refunds to third-party accounts. Outage credits (extensions or next-cycle discounts) are applied directly to your account, not paid out in cash.

If you initiate a chargeback with your bank without first contacting our support team, we may suspend or terminate your account until the matter is resolved.

We encourage you to contact us directly first to resolve any payment issues.

We may update this refund policy from time to time. Continued use of the app after changes means you accept the updated policy.