Cancellation, Withdrawal and Refunds

Hostna does not refund digital services once they are provisioned. What that means, and the statutory rights that sit around it.

The short answer: services are provisioned immediately at your request, and immediate provisioning is what ends the refund conversation. The long answer is below, because a consumer is entitled to the long answer.

The position

Hostna does not operate a money-back guarantee and does not refund a service that has been provisioned. This applies to hosting, virtual and dedicated servers, email, the website builder, TLS certificates, domain registrations and transfers, add-ons and setup fees.

There are two reasons, and neither is arbitrary. Capacity, licences, certificate issuance and registry fees are committed the moment an order is activated, and cannot be returned to stock. And a digital service, once delivered, cannot be given back in the way a physical product can.

You are told this before you pay, not after. The purchase declaration at checkout states it in plain words and will not let the order through until you confirm you have read it. Its exact wording is published at Purchase Declaration.

Your statutory right of withdrawal, and what happens to it

If you are a consumer in the EU, you have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason (§ 312g, § 355 BGB). We do not take that right away, and we could not.

What we do is ask you to make a choice at checkout. You can have the service now, or you can have the withdrawal period. Under § 356 (4) BGB, for a service, the right lapses once the service has been fully performed, where you expressly asked us to begin before the period ended and confirmed that you understood you would lose the right on full performance. Under § 356 (5) BGB, for digital content supplied outside a physical medium, the same applies from the moment supply begins.

Everybody who orders from Hostna asks for immediate provisioning, because a hosting account you cannot use for a fortnight is not a hosting account. So in practice: you consent, the service starts within minutes, and the withdrawal right ends when the service is fully provided.

If you do not want that, do not confirm the declaration — and do not order. There is no version of the order flow that gives you the service now and the withdrawal right as well.

When the withdrawal right does survive

Where you ordered but the service has not yet been provisioned, and you withdraw before it is — you get a full refund.
Where we failed to give you the required withdrawal information, in which case the period is extended by law.
Where a mandatory rule in your own country of residence gives you more than German law does.

Business customers have no withdrawal right. § 312g BGB applies to consumers only.

Withdrawal instructions

To withdraw, you must inform us by a clear statement — post, email or a message from your Client Area — of your decision to withdraw from the contract. You may use the model form below, but you do not have to. To meet the deadline it is enough to send your communication before the withdrawal period expires.

Address for withdrawal: KAUFEX, Muhamet Adıgüzel, Ziegelstr. 32b, 32105 Bad Salzuflen, Germany
Email: contact@hostna.com
Telephone: +49 1520 5383642

Where withdrawal is still available and you exercise it, we repay all payments received from you without undue delay and within 14 days of receiving your notice, using the same means of payment you used, at no charge to you. Where the service had already begun with your consent, you owe a proportionate amount for what was provided up to the point of withdrawal.

Model withdrawal form

Complete and return this form only if you wish to withdraw from the contract.

To: KAUFEX, Muhamet Adıgüzel, Ziegelstr. 32b, 32105 Bad Salzuflen, Germany — contact@hostna.com
I/We hereby give notice that I/We withdraw from my/our contract for the provision of the following service:
Ordered on / received on:
Name of consumer(s):
Address of consumer(s):
Signature of consumer(s) (only if this form is notified on paper):
Date:

Never refundable, except where these policies say otherwise

domain registrations, renewals, transfers and redemptions — the registry fee is paid on your behalf at the moment of registration and is not returned to us;
TLS certificates once issued;
setup fees for a service that was set up;
the remainder of the initial term after you cancel — cancellation stops the renewal, it does not shorten the initial period you bought. (Inside a renewed period the position is different: section 6 of the Terms of Service credits the prepaid time after your one-month notice takes effect.);
any service terminated for a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy;
time lost to an outage, except as a service credit under the Service Level and Availability policy;
a service you stopped using but did not cancel.

What we do refund

a duplicate payment, or a payment taken for a service that was never provisioned;
an amount we charged in error;
an order withdrawn before provisioning, as described above;
a credit balance in your account, on request, less any amount you still owe.

Refunds go back to the original payment method. Where that is not possible, we credit your Hostna account balance.

Cancelling a service

Two routes, equally valid: the Client Area, or — without any login — the cancellation page at Verträge hier kündigen / cancel contracts here. Both confirm receipt immediately. Email and post to the addresses in the Legal Notice work too.

During the initial term, cancellation takes effect at the end of that term. After the initial term the contract runs for an indefinite period and one month's notice ends it; prepaid time beyond that date is credited or refunded — section 6 of the Terms of Service has the detail. When the contract ends, the service and its data are removed. Export what you need first.

Cancelling is not the same as withdrawing. Cancellation ends the contract going forward; it does not refund the initial term.

Chargebacks

If you dispute a charge with your bank or card issuer instead of contacting us, the services on the account are suspended while the dispute runs, and the dispute fee charged to us is added to your balance. Talk to us first — an error on our side is corrected without a chargeback, and faster.