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The Seller Is Refusing Your Refund. What Actually Works, In What Order?
You paid. The thing was wrong, or broke in a week, or was never what was described. You asked for your money back and the answer was no — or worse, no answer at all. This page is the ladder: four rungs, cheapest first. The first two cost you nothing at all, so there is no reason to skip past them to a lawyer before you have tried them.
First, understand what you are actually holding
A refusal to refund is not automatically illegal. What makes it actionable is one of two things: the seller sold you something defective or not as described, or the seller promised a refund and did not honour it. Indian consumer law calls these a defect in goods, a deficiency in service, or an unfair trade practice, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 gives you a forum for all three.
Two facts about that forum are worth knowing before you do anything else, because they change how much fight this is worth.
You can file where you live
Under Section 34(2)(d) of the Act a complaint may be instituted in the District Commission within whose limits “the complainant resides or personally works for gain”. You do not have to travel to the seller's city. It is a real change from the older 1986 law, and the single most useful line in the Act for an ordinary buyer.
If the amount is small, filing costs nothing
Where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration is up to ₹5 lakh, the fee for filing in the District Commission is Nil. Not reduced. Nil.
Rung 1 — Put the refusal in writing, today
Whatever else you do, do this first, and do it in writing. Email or WhatsApp is fine. A phone call is not, because a phone call leaves nothing behind.
Say four things and nothing else: what you bought, what you paid, what is wrong, and that you want a refund of a specific amount by a specific date. Attach the order number, the invoice, and a photograph if the goods are defective.
You are not being aggressive here. You are creating the record every later rung stands on. A commission reads your file and asks one question early — did you give them a chance to fix it? A dated written demand is how you answer yes.
If you bought online, there is a clock running. Under Rules 4(4) and 4(5) of the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, every e-commerce entity must appoint a grievance officer, display that officer's name and contact details on its platform, and ensure the officer acknowledges your complaint within forty-eight hours and redresses it within one month of receipt. Send your written demand to that officer by name. When the month passes without a resolution, that silence is itself something you can point to.
Note what the rules do not say. On refunds specifically, Rule 4(10) requires payment of an accepted refund request “within a reasonable period of time” — and for anything firmer it points outward, to what the Reserve Bank of India or another applicable law prescribes, rather than setting a number of its own. So there is no fixed refund deadline in these rules. If someone quotes you one, ask which law it comes from, because it is not coming from here.
Rung 2 — The National Consumer Helpline. It is free, and most people skip it
The government runs a pre-litigation helpline that takes your grievance up with the company directly, at no cost to you.
- Toll-free 1915, 8 AM to 8 PM, all seven days except national holidays, with a call-back facility
- 17 languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi and Manipuri
- WhatsApp or SMS 8800001915
- consumerhelpline.gov.in, the NCH app, or the UMANG app
- [email protected]
This costs you a phone call, and it works often enough to be worth the phone call. Between 25 April and 31 October 2025 the helpline facilitated refunds of ₹27.61 crore across 49,333 refund grievances in thirty sectors. Companies that ignore an individual customer frequently respond to a grievance arriving through this channel, because it is logged and it is government-run. Try it before you spend money on anything, including on us.
Rung 3 — A legal notice
If the written demand and the helpline both go nowhere, a formal legal notice is the next step. It is a dated letter that sets out the facts, states the legal basis, demands a specific sum and gives a deadline — sent by Registered Post with Acknowledgement Due so that delivery itself becomes evidence.
Be honest with yourself about what it does. A notice is not a court order and nobody has to obey it. What it does is change the seller's arithmetic: it shows you are organised, it proves you gave notice, and it becomes an annexure — an attachment — to your complaint if you file one. For a lot of sellers that is enough. For some it is not.
This is the rung we help with. We draft the notice from your facts and, if you want, send it by Registered Post A.D. and hand you the tracking. That is the whole of it, and the section below says plainly what it is not.
Rung 4 — The consumer commission
If it still is not resolved, you file a complaint yourself.
- Where: online at e-Jagriti (e-jagriti.gov.in), the Department of Consumer Affairs platform launched on 1 January 2025 that absorbed the older e-Daakhil and CONFONET systems. If a guide or a forum post still tells you to file on e-Daakhil, that guide is out of date. It runs across more than 670 District Commissions, 36 State and Union Territory Commissions and the National Commission. Hearing by video is the default at the National Commission and the State Commissions; at District level, ask your own commission what it does rather than assuming, because that is where a refund claim under ₹50 lakh will be heard.
- Which commission: the District Commission, where the value of the goods or services you paid for (the law calls this the consideration) does not exceed ₹50 lakh. Above that and up to ₹2 crore it is the State Commission; above ₹2 crore, the National Commission. These limits come from the Consumer Protection (Jurisdiction) Rules, 2021, notified on 30 December 2021. Earlier writing that puts the District Commission's ceiling at ₹1 crore — including Section 34(1) of the Act as originally printed — is describing the pre-2021 position.
- What it costs: Nil up to ₹5 lakh. ₹200 above ₹5 lakh up to ₹10 lakh, ₹400 up to ₹20 lakh, ₹1,000 up to ₹50 lakh. These are the slabs as substituted into rule 7(2) by the amendment of 17 August 2023.
- How long you have: two years. Section 69 bars a commission from admitting a complaint filed more than two years after the cause of action arose — lawyer's shorthand for the day the thing you are complaining about happened, which here is normally the day they refused you. Exactly which day counts can be argued about, so count from the earliest date that could possibly be it, not the most convenient one. A commission may forgive a late filing if you satisfy it there was sufficient cause and it records its reasons, but do not plan on that. Treat two years as the wall.
- You may be asked to try mediation, and that matters more than it sounds. Under Section 37, where a commission thinks there are the makings of a settlement, it can ask both sides to agree in writing to have the dispute mediated instead. It costs you nothing. But a settlement reached in mediation is the end of the road: there is no appeal from it. So decide what you would actually accept before you walk in, rather than in the room.
You do not need a lawyer to file. Many people file for themselves, and the forum is designed for that. The free route, walked through step by step covers what the filing itself involves once you have decided to do it — this page is the order of the rungs before it.
Where we do not help
We would rather lose the sale than have you find this out later.
- We are not a law firm and we do not represent you. We draft documents. We do not appear before a commission, we do not argue your case, and we do not advise on your specific facts.
- We do not file your consumer complaint for you. e-Jagriti is yours to use, and it is free.
- If this is a criminal matter, this page is the wrong ladder. Where money was taken with no intention of ever delivering — a fake seller, a vanished website, a payment to a personal account that went dark — that is cheating, and it belongs in a police complaint and at cybercrime.gov.in, not in a refund demand. Start with the page for a seller who has disappeared. A notice to someone who was never a real seller is a letter to nobody.
- Family, inheritance, and land-title disputes are outside this entirely. Take those to an advocate.
- A big or complicated claim deserves an advocate. If the sum is large, or the seller has counsel, or there is a contract with an arbitration clause in it, get a lawyer. We will tell you when we think that is the honest answer.
The short version
- Written demand today. Dated, specific, to the grievance officer if you bought online.
- Call 1915. It is free, and it recovered ₹27.61 crore in six months of 2025.
- A legal notice by Registered Post A.D. if the first two fail — evidence, not an order.
- e-Jagriti, in your own district, no fee where you paid up to ₹5 lakh, and dead two years after the day you were refused. Expect to be offered mediation, and know that settling there is final.
- Seller vanished rather than refused? Different page, different ladder, 1930 first.
"Do I even have enough to send this?"
Gather these now even if you decide to send nothing. It is the same list the helpline asks for, and the same list a commission expects to see attached, so no minute spent on it is wasted. It is the same checklist we show people who have already paid. Nothing here is a test you can fail: it tells you what to chase, not whether you are allowed to act.
What the claim turns on
Missing one of these does not stop you sending anything. It does mean this is the first thing you will be asked for, so it is the first thing worth chasing.
The bill, invoice or order confirmation for what you bought
It is what makes you a consumer of this particular transaction and names the seller you are complaining about. Without it, the first argument is about whether you bought it at all — and from whom.
If you do not have it: No paper bill? The order confirmation email, the app's order page, or the card or UPI statement line showing the payment all do the same job.
Proof of what is actually wrong — photographs, video, or the failed report
A deficiency has to be shown, not described. This is the difference between 'it does not work properly' and a defect a commission can see for itself.
If you do not have it: Photograph or film the fault now, while it exists — a phone video of the problem happening is worth more than a long written description later.
What makes it much harder to argue with
Not strictly required, and the difference between a demand that gets taken seriously and one that gets ignored is usually somewhere in here.
What you were promised — warranty, service terms, or the listing
The claim is the gap between what was promised and what you got, so the promise has to be on record. An advertised specification counts as much as a warranty card.
If you do not have it: The warranty card, the terms page, or a screenshot of the product listing or advertisement as it was when you bought.
The complaints you already made, and what they said back
It shows the seller had the chance to put it right and did not, which is what makes this notice a next step rather than a first move. A ticket or docket number is especially useful.
If you do not have it: The customer-care chat, the email thread, or the call log with the service-centre docket number.
Worth adding if you have it
Useful context. Skip any of these you do not have — none of them is worth delaying over.
Any repair, service or return attempt already made
Repeated failed repairs are themselves evidence of the deficiency, and they usually strengthen a demand for replacement or refund over yet another repair.
If you do not have it: Skip this if nobody has attempted a repair or a return.
Missing something? Send it anyway. Nothing on this list is a condition of writing to the other side, and people in a genuine dispute usually have less on paper than they should. The list is here so you know what you will be asked for and can start collecting it now, while it still exists — not so you can be told to wait.
Still deciding · free
Not sure whether they actually owe you the money?
Paste the seller's refusal, the return policy, the terms you agreed to, or the invoice. We will tell you free what your position is — whether this is a defect, a deficiency, or a policy you are stuck with — before you spend anything on it.
Agreements.co.in is a technology platform, not a law firm, and this guide is general information about how the process works in India, not legal advice on your specific facts. Amounts, deadlines and forums differ by state and by the exact wording of your documents. For anything large, contested, or already in court, speak to an advocate.