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What a refund is on Mason Lab, when you get one, where the money goes, and what happens to the item. This policy forms part of the Terms of Service and takes effect on Effective date not yet specified.
A refund returns the amount of an order from escrow to your Mason Lab balance. It is an entry on our internal ledger, denominated in USD, and it happens immediately when the refund is decided.
A refund is not a payment to a card, bank account, or crypto wallet. Money leaves the Platform only under section 4, and only to the address it arrived from. Until then, a refunded balance can be used to pay for other orders on the Platform.
While an order is in escrow, the money is still held by Mason Lab and can be refunded in full. After escrow is released, see section 3.
Auto-release does not pay the seller out — it moves the money into the seller's held balance. The seller cannot withdraw it until the dispute window closes. A dispute opened after auto-release is settled out of that held balance, which is exactly why the dispute window can be longer than the auto-release period, and why the seller's payout hold — which only changes how fast a seller is paid — never shortens your right to dispute or to a replacement.
Once the dispute window has closed and the seller has been paid out, the payout is irreversible. Claims after that point are handled as a moderation matter against the seller account; Mason Lab cannot claw back funds already sent.
A balance leaves Mason Lab only to the address the payment came from. There is no option to nominate a different address, and we will not act on a request to send funds anywhere else.
Where a balance was funded by several deposits, it is returned to those addresses in the order in which the deposits were received, and never more to an address than was received from it. The network fee of the outgoing transaction is deducted from the amount returned. This applies to a refunded order amount, to a withdrawal of an unused balance, and to the balance returned when an account is closed.
If an originating address cannot receive a return — for example, it belongs to an exchange or to a smart contract — the amount stays on your balance and is released only against instructions we can verify. See the AML Policy for incoming payments that are declined on screening.
Status: the payer address of every incoming payment is recorded, so a return to source is possible in principle; what is missing is the way out — no payout provider is connected and no money can currently leave the Platform. Mason Lab does not promise any external payout to a buyer before this section is in operation.
Step one — contact the seller in the order chat and ask for a replacement. The seller has a fixed period to respond; the 14-day replacement guarantee exists for this. Most problems with a key are resolved here in minutes, and a seller who ignores the request loses the dispute on that ground alone.
Step two — open a dispute on the order if the seller does not fix it. Both sides submit evidence. We aim to decide within 72 hours of the evidence period closing; that is a target, not a guarantee, and a complex case takes longer. An arbiter decides one of three outcomes: refund the buyer, release to the seller, or split the amount. The decision is final.
Only one dispute may be opened per order, and a dispute you withdraw cannot be reopened. Withdrawing a dispute closes it without moving any funds.
We record whether and when a delivered item was revealed to you. Once you have revealed the item, the burden of proof is on you. A revealed secret cannot be un-seen, so a refund after reveal is not automatic and is not the default outcome: you must show what was wrong — for example, the code is rejected as already used, the region does not match the listing, or access is revoked shortly after delivery. Screenshots of the vendor error, with a timestamp, are the strongest evidence.
Claiming an item was not received after it has been revealed, submitting fabricated evidence, or opening a dispute to extract an off-Platform payment ends in the claim being denied, the amount being forfeited, and the account being restricted or terminated. We keep a refund counter per account; above a threshold, purchases are restricted and every claim is reviewed manually.
When an order is refunded, the delivered key, code, or credential is revoked and must no longer be used. Continuing to use it after a refund is a breach of the Terms.
A revealed item is never returned to sale — it is destroyed. An item you never revealed that comes back to the seller through a dispute goes to quarantine: it is out of stock and cannot be sold to anyone until the seller decides, in the seller console, either to write it off or to put it back on sale expressly and at their own responsibility. An item cancelled before it was ever revealed goes straight back to normal stock.
Refund questions and escalations: Contact channel not yet specified. The operator of the Platform is Legal entity not yet specified (Jurisdiction not yet specified).