Refund policy
What to do if a £1 contribution was accidental, duplicated or unauthorised.
1. This is a voluntary contribution
The £1 payment is a voluntary contribution to a personal crowdfunding/social experiment. It is not a purchase of goods or services and does not create an investment or repayment entitlement.
2. Mistakes and accidental duplicate payments
If you contributed by mistake or accidentally completed the £1 checkout more than once, contact the project as soon as reasonably possible and ideally within 14 days of the payment. Where the payment can be identified and has not already become impossible to recover because funds were lawfully allocated or transferred, reasonable refund requests will normally be considered.
3. Unauthorised or fraudulent payments
If you believe your payment method was used without permission, contact your bank/card provider promptly and notify the project. We will cooperate with Stripe and relevant payment providers in investigating unauthorised transactions, fraud and disputes.
4. How approved refunds are made
Approved refunds are normally sent back through Stripe to the original payment method. Once a refund is issued, the time it takes to appear depends on the payment method and banking system; Stripe advises that card refunds commonly take around 5–10 business days to appear.
5. Processing fees
Stripe may retain processing fees charged to the project even when a payment is refunded. If the project approves a full refund of your £1 contribution, the intention is that you receive the approved refund amount while the project bears any non-returned processing fee, subject to Stripe/payment-network rules.
6. Effect on the tracker and supporter number
Once the backend receives and processes a full refund/reversal, that contribution should stop counting toward the live paid total. The original supporter number may remain retired rather than being reassigned, so sequential numbers can contain gaps.
7. Funds already transferred to a third party
If project money has already been lawfully transferred to a charity, service provider, scholarship recipient or another published beneficiary, it may not be possible to recover that specific money. This is one reason refund requests should be made promptly.
8. Chargebacks and disputes
If something is wrong, please try to contact the project first where appropriate so the issue can be investigated. This does not remove any rights you may have through your bank, card issuer, Stripe or applicable law.
9. Contact
Refund enquiries should be sent to contact@the1millionproject.co.uk. Include the approximate payment date and the email used at checkout, but never send card numbers, CVCs, passwords, one-time security codes or online-banking credentials.