Refund Policy
A donation is a gift, and a gift is not usually given back. But mistakes happen — a duplicate payment, an extra zero, a card used by someone else — and when they do we put them right. This page says exactly when, how to ask, and how long it takes.
In short
Donations to Shivganga are voluntary gifts and are ordinarily not refundable, because the money goes to work in the villages soon after it arrives.
We will, however, refund a donation made by mistake or without authority — a duplicate payment, a wrong amount, or a card used by someone who had no right to use it — and we will refund a donation you simply want back if you ask us within seven days.
Nothing is sold on this website, so there is nothing to return and no shipping to cancel. This page covers donations, and the cancellation of recurring donations.
When we will refund
We will make a refund in these cases:
- A duplicate payment. The same donation went through twice — the page was submitted twice, or the app retried. We refund the extra one.
- A wrong amount. You meant ₹1,000 and sent ₹10,000. We refund the difference, or the whole amount if you would rather start again.
- An unauthorised payment. Your card, account or UPI handle was used by someone who had no right to use it. Tell us as soon as you know, whatever the date, and we will refund it once we and the gateway have verified what happened. Please tell your bank as well.
- A donation you want back. If you change your mind, write to us within seven days of the donation and we will return it, without asking why.
- A technical failure at our end. Money was taken but the donation was not recorded, or a recurring instalment was collected after you had cancelled it.
When we cannot refund
- After seven days, where the reason is simply that you have changed your mind. By then the money has usually been committed to the work it was given for.
- Where the 80G exemption has already been claimed against the receipt for that donation. A refunded donation cannot also carry a tax exemption.
- Where a donation was made to a specific campaign that has closed and the money has been spent on it.
- Where we cannot establish that the request comes from the donor, or where the details given do not match any donation we hold.
- Instalments of a recurring donation that have already been collected. Cancelling stops the ones to come; it does not undo the ones already given.
- Donations in kind — material, equipment or labour — which are not payments and cannot be returned as money.
If your situation does not fit any of these, write to us anyway. Where a genuine hardship or a genuine mistake is involved we would rather look at it than stand behind a rule.
How to ask for a refund
Email contact@shivgangajhabua.org from the address you used to donate, with the subject line Refund request, and include:
- The name the donation was made in.
- The date of the donation and the amount.
- The transaction, payment or order reference — it is on the receipt we emailed you, and in your bank or card statement.
- The reason, in a line or two.
- The receipt number, if a receipt has already been issued.
You can also telephone the Indore office on +91 94069 22130, but please follow the call with an email so there is a record.
We do not need your card number, your CVV, your UPI PIN or your net-banking password to make a refund, and we will never ask you for them. Nobody from Shivganga will ever call you and ask for them either.
How long it takes
- We acknowledge a refund request within three working days.
- Where the request is accepted, we send the refund to our payment gateway within seven working days of accepting it.
- The gateway returns the money to the same card, account or UPI handle it came from. We cannot send it anywhere else — not to a different account, and not in cash.
- Once sent, banks usually post the money back within five to ten working days. That last step is the bank’s, not ours; if it has not arrived by then, write to us and we will send you the gateway’s refund reference to give them.
The full amount of the donation is refunded. We do not deduct a handling charge, and the gateway’s own transaction fee is borne by us.
What happens to the receipt and the 80G
A refunded donation is no longer a donation, so the receipt for it stops being valid. When we make a refund:
- We cancel the receipt in our records and, where the refund is partial, issue a fresh receipt for the amount you actually gave.
- You must not claim, and must withdraw if already claimed, any exemption under Section 80G against the cancelled receipt.
- Where the donation has already been reported in the statement of donations filed with the Income Tax Department, we correct that filing.
Payments that failed or are stuck
Sometimes money leaves your account but the donation page shows a failure, or shows nothing at all. This is almost always the bank holding the amount rather than a payment we have received.
- Banks usually reverse such an amount on their own within five to ten working days. In most cases you need do nothing.
- If it has not come back after that, write to us with the date, the amount and the reference from your statement. We will check whether it reached us and, if it did, refund it; if it did not, we will tell you so you can take it up with your bank.
- If you were charged twice for a single donation, tell us and we will refund the duplicate, whatever the date.
Cancelling a recurring donation
A recurring donation continues until it is cancelled, and you can cancel it at any time, without giving a reason.
- Cancel from the monthly-giving page at https://new-version.shivgangajhabua.org/recurring-donation/cancel, where you can change the amount or stop it; or
- Email contact@shivgangajhabua.org with the name and address the donation was set up in, and we will cancel it for you.
Please send a cancellation at least three working days before the next instalment is due. Bank mandates are presented in advance, and an instruction that arrives after that may not stop the instalment already on its way. If one is collected after you cancelled, tell us and we will refund it.
Cancelling stops future instalments only. Instalments already collected have already gone to the work, and are covered by the section on when we cannot refund.
If you dispute a payment with your bank
You are entitled to raise a chargeback with your bank or card issuer. We would ask you to write to us first: a chargeback takes weeks, costs the society a fee whatever the outcome, and in almost every case the thing you want — your money back — is quicker by email.
Where a chargeback is raised, we will give the gateway and the bank the records of the donation so the matter can be settled on the facts.
Changes to this policy
We may revise this policy. The version on this page is the one in force, and the “last updated” date at the top tells you when it last changed. A donation is dealt with under the policy that was in force on the day it was made.
Who to write to
Every refund request, every cancellation, and every payment that went wrong comes to the same address. Write to us with the transaction reference and the date, and we will take it from there.
50 A Lokmanya Nagar Extension, Indore – 452009, Madhya Pradesh, India
Email: contact@shivgangajhabua.org
Telephone: +91 94069 22130 (Indore) or +91 95882 96068 (Dharampuri Gurukul)