Refunds

Hugs are free and always will be. Nobody having a bad night should ever meet a price, so there is nothing on that side of the site to refund.

The only thing sold here is a membership, which is bought for a fixed period — one, three, six or twelve months — and paid for in advance.

A membership does not renew by itself. There is no stored card and no silent charge: you pay once for a period, it runs out, and we email you before it does. So “cancelling” is not a thing you ever need to do here, and there is no subscription anyone can forget to stop.

• Within seven days of paying — in full, no questions. You changed your mind, you misread what it included, or you would simply rather not. Say so and the money goes back.
• You were charged and got nothing. If a payment went through and the membership did not start, that is always refunded in full, and we would much rather you told us than assumed it was your fault.
• You were charged twice. The duplicate goes back in full.
• We removed your account without cause. The unused part of the period is refunded pro rata.
• Something we sold you did not work. If a feature you paid for was broken for a meaningful part of your period, the affected part is refunded pro rata. Ask; we will not make you prove it.

After the first seven days, a period that has been used is not refunded simply because you have stopped using it — a membership is bought in advance and it is spent as time passes, and a longer period is already discounted for exactly that reason.

We also do not refund an account removed for breaking the two rules. Asking another member for money is the one that gets people removed the same day, and it does not come with a refund.

A membership bought for somebody else by a Patron or Elite member is funded generosity rather than a purchase they made, so there is nothing to return to them if they leave.

Email care@freehug.me from the address on your account and say what you paid for. You do not need a reference number and you do not need to explain yourself. We answer within one working day and tell you the decision and the reason for it.

A refund goes back to the way you paid, and we cannot send it anywhere else. Once we have raised it:

• Paid in rupees, through Cashfree — 7 to 10 working days. UPI refunds are only ever processed at the standard speed; there is no faster option for them, so plan for the longer end of that.
• Paid in dollars, through PayPal — usually a few working days, though your own bank may add time on top.

We email you when the money is genuinely on its way, not when the refund is requested — those can be a week and a half apart, and telling you early would just start the clock in the wrong place. If it has not arrived ten working days after that email, write back and we will chase it.

When a refund completes, the membership it paid for ends at the same time and your account goes back to the free tier. Everything that was free stays free — hugs, albums, photographs, meeting people — because none of that was ever behind the payment.

Payments here are collected by Saptarang Ventures (OPC) Private Limited, which runs freehug.me, through Cashfree Payments in India and PayPal elsewhere. A refund is issued by the same company through the same processor.

C-102, Acropolis Apartments, Thatte Nagar, Nashik 422005, India