Refund Policy
Last updated 18 September 2026
One sentence, and the rest of this page is detail: if the coach or academy you paid to reach never gets in touch, or never shows up, you get the session fee back.
This policy forms part of our Terms of Service and applies to every paid demo booking made on ChessDial under booking terms 2026-09-v2.
On this page
01What you paid for
A booking total is made of two parts, and they behave differently. You saw this split on the checkout page before you paid.
- Session fee
- 90% of the total.The coach or academy’s share, for the demo session itself. Fully refundable if the session never happens.
- Platform fee
- 10% of the total. Ours, for finding and vetting the coach and for putting you in touch. Non-refundable.
Why the platform fee cannot come back.The moment your payment clears, we hand you the coach’s own phone number, WhatsApp or email — the thing you were buying. We cannot un-reveal it, so we cannot return the fee that revealed it. This is what stops someone booking, taking the contact, and cancelling.
There is one exception, and it is the case where the contact turned out to be worth nothing: see section 2.
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 what you paid — 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 after payment so that this is still possible when you report it.
If they simply never answer, the platform fee comes back too. The two grounds above return the session fee. But if you could reach the coach and they responded to nothing — no reply on the number, WhatsApp or email we unlocked, and no session — then what we sold you did not work, and we do not keep our share of it either. Write to support@chessbase.in with your booking reference and what you tried.
We check this carefully rather than take it at face value: we look at the booking, we ask the coach, and we give them a chance to answer. If it holds up, we refund the whole amount you paid, platform fee included, and we unlist the coach from ChessDial. A coach who cannot be reached by the people paying to reach them has no business being listed.
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
- Day 7 after you pay. Coaches get 7 days to arrange something, so before then the session may simply still be coming.
- Window closes
- Day 14 after you pay — a hard deadline. It is counted from your payment, so nothing a coach does or marks can shorten or stretch it.
- Cost to you
- Nothing. Reporting a problem is free and does not affect your account.
Your bookings page shows both dates for every booking you have, 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.
Profiles outside India are listed free: you reach those coaches at no charge, so there is never a payment to refund.
08If you are the coach or academy
A refund to a student means that booking pays you nothing. Earnings are held for a period before they can settle, and a booking under an open dispute is held until it is decided. The payout schedule itself is still being finalised — 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.
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 14 days after the booking, when the 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.