Refund Policy — DivorceConnect India

This Refund Policy outlines the financial terms governing the consultation fees, retainer payments, and verification transactions conducted through our payment gateway integration.

1. Consultation Fee Escrow Management

All financial transactions between clients and lawyers are routed through our secure platform mediator layer. When a client initiates a hire request, the consultation fee is captured and held in our escrow account. The funds are not released to the lawyer until the case request has been officially accepted, verified, and the initial case stage has commenced.

2. Case Rejection & Cancelation Windows

To ensure client protection, consultation fees are fully refundable under the following circumstances:

If the lawyer rejects the incoming case request, the platform automatically triggers a 100% refund of the captured fee back to the client's original payment source.
If the lawyer fails to respond or take action within the designated 72-hour operational window, the system automatically marks the request as expired and processes a full refund.

3. Verification Failures & Fraudulent Submissions

We maintain strict compliance gates. If a client pays a consultation fee but is unable to pass the mandatory document verification review:

⚠️ Verification Rejection Protocol If the document verification fails due to accidental mismatch or formatting errors, the consultation fee will be refunded after deducting a nominal processing charge. However, if the verification is rejected because the user uploaded explicitly falsified documents or fraudulent identity materials, the fee is forfeited to cover administrative validation costs, and the account will be immediately flagged for suspension under our warning guidelines.