Refunds, Payments & Cancellations
1. What you are paying for
Payments in Localsville are for real-world local goods and services — someone's time, work, or something they made or grew. They are not digital content, subscriptions to digital features, or in-app items.
The one exception is the optional Local Partner membership, which is a paid membership in our own program rather than a purchase from a neighbour. It has its own rule, in section 8.
2. How a payment happens
- You and the other person agree what is being done and what it costs.
- They send you a quote in the app.
- You accept and pay.
- The commitment — an appointment, a pickup, or a delivery — is created.
You always see the amount before you pay. Nothing is charged without you accepting a specific quote for a specific thing. Where a delivery is involved, the delivery fee is shown to you and paid as part of the same payment.
3. Who handles your card
Stripe. Card details are entered in Stripe's own payment sheet and go to Stripe. They never reach Localsville's servers, and we never store a card number.
4. If a payment fails or is cancelled
If a payment does not go through, the booking is not made and you are not charged. Nothing is left half-finished — you can simply try again. If a payment is cancelled before it completes, the same applies.
5. Cancelling something you booked
Cancelling in the app is free. We do not charge a cancellation fee, and a provider cannot set their own cancellation terms — there is no such setting in Localsville.
Who can cancel, and when:
- An appointment can be cancelled by either side at any point before it is completed, marked a no-show, or already cancelled.
- A pickup or a delivery can be cancelled by you while it is still at the paid stage — that is, before the other person marks it ready. After that, the person providing it can still cancel, and you can report a problem or ask for a refund.
- A courier can also release a delivery before collecting it, which simply puts it back for another courier to take. That is not a cancellation of your order.
- A quote can be withdrawn by the person who sent it, up until it is paid. A quote you never accept costs you nothing and expires on its own.
What cancelling means for your money. It depends on one thing: whether the work had begun.
Before work begins — you get a full refund. You do not have to ask for it and nobody has to approve it. This covers:
- an appointment you cancel while its agreed time is still in the future;
- a pickup or delivery you cancel while it is still only paid for — before the other person has made it ready;
- any cancellation by the provider before the job is finished, whatever stage it had reached;
- an appointment where no time was ever agreed and 48 hours have passed since you paid — see below.
The moment you cancel, that refund is owed to you — for the whole amount you paid, with no cancellation fee taken out of it, and the card-processing cost is ours to absorb rather than yours. It is not a request, and nobody decides whether you get it. We then send it back through the payment system, which is a separate step: see “Cancelling and being paid back are separate steps” below.
After work begins, before it is finished — a refund is not automatic. You can ask for one, and a person on our team will look at what actually happened. They may approve it in full, approve part of it, or decline it.
After it is finished — same thing: ask, and a person will review it. If a refund is approved after the other person has already been paid, we recover it from their later payouts rather than leaving you out of pocket.
A partial refund is an exception, not the usual answer. Where a refund is owed under the “before work begins” rule above, it is the full amount. Partial amounts exist for the middle cases, and only a person on our team can decide one.
If no time is ever agreed (48 hours). Some appointments are paid first and scheduled afterwards. If 48 hours pass and the other person still has not confirmed a time, you can cancel and get a full refund. Before those 48 hours are up, you can still cancel — but that particular right has not started yet, so the money follows the normal review route.
Cancelling and being paid back are separate steps. Cancelling is instant. Being owed the money is instant. The money actually moving is neither — we process the refund back through Stripe to the way you paid, and then it has to clear your card issuer and your bank. Commonly that takes several business days. We do not promise a date, and it is not an instant automatic reversal at the moment you tap cancel. What you can rely on is the entitlement: it is yours, it is the full amount, and it does not depend on anyone approving it. The app shows you which stage it has reached.
6. Refunds
If something did not happen, was not as described, or went wrong, you can request a refund from the appointment, pickup or delivery, or from Get help.
You can request a refund for any appointment, pickup or delivery that you were part of and that you actually paid for. We do not put a deadline on asking, though telling us sooner makes it much easier to sort out — and see the note on reporting a problem below.
Where no full refund is already owed under section 5, a refund request is a request. It is reviewed by a person on our team. It does not process a refund automatically, and it is never approved automatically. It may be approved in full, approved in part, or declined, depending on what actually happened, and we do not guarantee any particular outcome. This is the route for the middle and after-the-fact cases — not for a cancellation that already qualifies for a full refund, which needs no approval from anyone.
There is a real distinction we are careful about in the app, and it matters here:
- Refund requested — we have your request.
- Refund approved — we have decided to return the money and instructed Stripe.
- Refund sent — Stripe has actually completed it.
Approval is not arrival. Once approved, the money moves through Stripe, your card issuer and your bank, and how long that takes is up to them — commonly several business days. We do not control it and we do not promise a date. The app shows which of the three stages you are at rather than implying the money has landed.
If a refund fails at Stripe, we say so rather than showing it as complete, and our team follows it up.
Reporting a problem is a separate thing, and it does have a time limit. Alongside asking for a refund, you can report a problem with a commitment while it is happening and for 72 hours after it ends. Doing that also places a hold on the other person's payout while we look into it, which is why it is time-limited. That 72 hours is a limit on reporting a problem — it is not a deadline for asking for a refund.
7. What a refund means for the other side
If someone was already paid for something that is later refunded, that amount becomes a balance they owe, recovered from their later payouts. This is why a refund can be approved even after a provider has been paid, and even after the job was marked complete.
Where a delivery was part of what you paid for, a refund request covers what you paid, and what comes back depends on what actually happened. A courier is paid only for a delivery actually completed — a cancelled or unfinished delivery does not earn a fee.
8. Local Partner membership
The optional Local Partner membership is different from everything above, because it is not a purchase from another person.
Once your membership is activated, the $149 fee is non-refundable. There is no pro-rated refund if you stop taking part or let the membership lapse, and there is no general cancellation window — no 7-day, 14-day or 30-day money-back period. If we end or restrict your participation because you broke the Local Partner Terms, the Terms of Use or the Community Guidelines, that does not create a right to a refund.
The only exceptions are: (1) where a refund is required by law; (2) a duplicate or erroneous charge; and (3) a charge we successfully took but failed to turn into an activated membership because of an error on our side.
The membership is a one-time payment for a one-year term and does not automatically renew. Full terms: Local Partner Terms.
9. Payouts
If you are paid through Localsville: payouts run through Stripe Connect, are sent once your available balance reaches $25, run weekly for people, places and couriers and monthly for partners, and can be delayed by holds, reviews or refunds. Couriers should also see the Community Courier Terms, and Local Partners the Local Partner Terms.
We do not guarantee payout timing.
10. Disputes with your bank
If you dispute a charge with your card issuer instead of asking us, the money and the case move to your issuer and Stripe, and are decided under their rules. Talking to us first is usually faster, and we would rather sort it out.
11. Questions
support@localsville.com, or Get help in the app.