Complaints, Refunds, Replacements and Cancellation Policy

Last updated: 09th June, 2015 at 20:20

Customer satisfaction is very important to us at LCHost, but we accept that there are circumstances that may arise which may result in you wanting to cancel or return a service or product. While we will always do our best to resolve the situation in the fairest manner possible, we do have a number of general policies which will be relied upon in the event of a disagreement which cannot be resolved amicably.

Please note that if you have signed a service agreement then the terms in that agreement take precedence over these standard terms.

If you have a complaint

If you have a complaint, you should contact your account manager in the first instance if you have one; if you do not have an account manager, please mail support@lchost.co.uk outlining the nature of your complaint and it will be investigated as soon as possible. Our support ticketing system will automatically acknowledge receipt of your email within a few minutes. We aim to reply to all complaints the same business day, but it may take up to 10 working days depending on the complexity of the issue at hand. All complaints are monitored at director level within the company.

In the event that you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint you may request escalation from the staff member handling your case – and the case will be reassigned to a director as necessary. In the unlikely event that an amicable resolution cannot be reached and you have domain names registered through us that have been properly paid for by you (this may require the settlement of any agreement the registration forms part of), we will release these without further charge.

Purchases by UK Consumers/Individuals (“B2C”)

If you are a UK consumer rather than a business customer your statutory rights are unaffected.

Please note that your statutory rights under the UK Distance Selling Regulations do NOT include a cooling off period for services once they have commenced, however it’s important to us that you feel secure in making a purchase and that we have happy customers – in the extremely unlikely event that you are unhappy with your service in the first 7 days and we can’t put it right you may cancel any agreements you have made and you will be refunded your payment(s) less any nonrefundable elements (see “Refunds”, below).

In the rare cases where we have sold a physical product to a consumer which you wish to return, you must first contact our support department explaining the reasons for the return and to get an RMA number and the correct shipping details. Returns of non-faulty items (ordered in error, for example) may be subject to a restocking or administration fee. You are responsible for the cost of returning any non-faulty item to us, and must do so using an insured carrier, in the original packaging and in the condition it was supplied. If the product was shipped inside an external box or carrier, please ensure to repackage the product properly inside the same or an equivalent protective cover.

Cancellations

Should you choose to cancel before any service has been provisioned, and before any nonrefundable costs have been incurred by us, we will at our discretion choose to offer a refund or service credits to you.

If you choose to cancel partway through a minimum-term contract agreement which we were not in breach of (after any applicable cooling off period has elapsed), you will still be liable for any fees governed by that contract for the remainder of the term of the agreement.

If you choose to cancel a non-contracted but prepaid service (eg: annual webhosting payment) you will be offered a service credit or at our discretion a refund equal to the unused portion of the service.

We reserve the right to levy a £12 (including VAT) administration fee against cancellations, and any refunds or service credits will be net of that fee.

Refunds

LCHost operates a refund policy on a qualification basis.

Each case is examined on an individual basis in order to examine if a refund is suitable. In certain cases, products are nonrefundable (see below). In other cases, a service credit may be issued which can be used against future invoices.

In cases where there is fault on our part (service not as advertised, extended service failure through events which are under our control, error by staff) a service may be cancelled and a refund may be requested for the unused portion of the service, as well as any period where the service has been unavailable. If a service has been found to be unavailable or operating otherwise out of specification for the entire duration, a full refund will likely be offered.

Cases in which we will only consider offering a service credit include (but are not limited to) customer error in purchasing the wrong service type or service failures due to circumstances beyond our control.

In the case of delivered physical products, refunds can only be offered if the unit was not custom-built and also only if the product packaging is intact. Your statutory rights are not affected.

Replacement

Given that the vast majority of our product sales do not involve a tangible element to customers, replacements do not usually occur in the traditional sense.

We may, at our discretion, replace or repair rented equipment and or parts of equipment if they are found to be operating outside of normal tolerances, provided that they have not been damaged by the direct or indirect action of the affected customer.

In the event that a physical product has been delivered to the customer, all such products will be covered by the manufacturers standard warranty (typically 1 year, though notable exceptions include Cisco hardware without a SMARTnet agreement, which is only warranted for 90 days) unless otherwise stated – during this period we will, at our/the manufacturers discretion, repair or replace defective parts and return a fully functional product to you.