Payments and billing

What you are buying

A plan buys a number of RECORDS. A record is one person's messages with another, however many applications they crossed — a WhatsApp export, an Instagram download and a folder of screenshots between the same two people are one record, not three. A second record means a different pair of people.

Every plan is certified. The translation, the Certificate of Translation Accuracy, the third-party verification document, review by a person and notarisation of the signature are all in the price. There is no cheaper version that leaves the certificate off.

When you are charged

One case and Matter are charged once, at the moment you confirm. There is no renewal and no subscription.

A monthly arrangement, which we agree with firms in writing, is charged on the day you start and on the same day of each month after. Where that day does not exist in a shorter month — the 31st in February — it is charged on the last day of that month instead.

Prices are in US dollars and exclude any tax that applies where you are. Tax is calculated and shown at checkout before you confirm.

Changing plan

You are never charged twice for the same thing. Before anything is taken you are shown what carries over, what is due that day, what the next invoice will be and the exact date it falls.

Moving off a one-off plan carries the UNUSED part of it across. Five records bought for $799 are $159.80 each, so two unused are worth $319.60; if you have used none, the whole amount carries. That value is applied as a credit against what you owe, not as a discount, so the new plan renews at its real price rather than a reduced one.

Moving between monthly arrangements changes the existing one rather than starting a second. You are charged for the remainder of the current period at the new rate, less the unused days at the old rate.

Your billing date does not move

If you change plan part-way through a month, your billing date stays where it is. Upgrading on the 13th when you renew on the 15th means you pay for those two days at the new rate and then the full amount on the 15th, as always.

We do not restart the month when you upgrade. Doing so would charge you a full period days after you had paid for one, and we would rather explain a small figure than a surprising one.

Refunds

Before we begin work, you can have your money back in full. Write to contact@bonafiles.com and say so; you do not need to give a reason. This is the position that matters, because the analysis is free before you pay and nobody should have to buy blind.

Once processing has begun we cannot refund it. What you are buying is bespoke work performed to order: a person reads your conversation, translates it against the original and signs a certificate of accuracy in their own name. That work cannot be returned to us or resold, and it is done whether or not the result is what you hoped.

If something has gone wrong with the work itself — a mistranslation, a missing exhibit, an error on a certificate — tell us and we will correct it. That is not a refund question and there is no time limit on it.

Where a payment was taken in error, or for a period you did not intend and have not used, tell us and we will return it.

• Before work starts — refunded in full, no reason needed
• After work starts — not refunded, because the work has been performed
• Something wrong with the work — corrected, at no charge, with no deadline
• Charged in error — returned

Unused records

Records do not expire while a plan is live, and they carry across when you change plan. They are not transferable to another account and they have no cash value on their own.

Failed payments

If a monthly payment fails we will tell you and try again. Work already delivered stays delivered and stays yours. If it keeps failing we will pause new work rather than let a balance build up quietly, and we will write to you before we do.

If you dispute a charge

Write to us first. A chargeback filed with a bank costs both of us a fee and takes weeks, and almost everything people file them over — a charge they did not recognise, a plan they meant to cancel, work they thought had not started — we would simply have sorted out.

We keep a record of what was agreed, when it was confirmed, what was produced and when it was delivered, and we will provide it to you as readily as to a bank.

Your statutory rights

Where you live may give you stronger rights than this policy, including a statutory cooling-off period for consumers. Nothing here reduces those rights. Where a cooling-off right applies and you ask us to begin work inside it, you are asking us to start before it expires, and the bespoke-work position above then applies to what has been done.