Returns and refunds

Almost everything here is secondhand and there is usually one of it. That makes returns different from a shop, so this says plainly what you get back, and when.

Before you pick it up

Open the order and press Cancel this order any time before you pick it up, and you get all of your money back. No fee, and no reason required, though we ask you to pick one so we can tell an ordinary change of mind from a seller who keeps letting people down.

That covers changing your mind, not being able to make the pickup, the seller being unable to supply the item, the seller canceling the whole sale, and arriving to find the item is not what the listing described. In every one of those you are refunded in full.

After you pick it up, you still have time

This is the part most people expect to be nothing. Confirming the pickup code does not end it. We keep holding the seller’s money for a while afterwards, and for that whole time the order can still be refunded.

What a seller cannot shorten is the reason. Damaged and not-as-described are refundable on every listing on WhimSale, at any window length. A seller chooses how long you have, never whether the item has to be what they said it was.

It is there for the thing you cannot see at the kerb: you get it home, plug it in, and it does not work. Or you unwrap it and there is a crack the photograph did not show. Tell us inside the window and you can have all of your money back, or part of it if you would rather keep the item at a lower price and the seller agrees.

How long is up to the seller, between 24 hours and 7 days. It is written on the listing before you buy, so you know what you are getting before you pay, and the exact deadline is on the order afterwards. 3 days is the standard, and it is what a seller who has never touched the setting gives you.

After that

Once the window closes the money goes to the seller and the sale is finished. We can still help you talk to them, and we still want to know if something went wrong, because it counts against a seller’s record. What we cannot do is take money back that is no longer ours to take.

What this is not

It is not a change-of-mind return. Once you have the item and it is what the listing said it was, it is yours. A garage sale is not a shop with a returns counter, and pretending otherwise would make sellers price for it.

It is also not an inspection we have done. We check nothing about an item beyond what the seller tells us and shows us. Look at the thing before you confirm the code, which is the point at which the terms say the handover happened.

How the money comes back

To the card you paid with. Cards usually take five to ten days to show it, which is the bank rather than us.