💸 Cancellations & Refunds

1. Why we cannot refund a job

On Merik Sokoni you pay the provider directly. Cash in hand, M-Pesa to their number, or bank transfer — whichever they accept and you both agree.

What we can do is read the order record and the chat, mediate between the two of you, and act against a provider who is behaving badly. Section 4 explains that.

2. Cancelling an order

An order moves through fixed stages, and what can be cancelled depends on where it has got to.

If you are the customer

• There is no cancel button on your side yet. Say so in the order chat and ask the provider to decline or close the order. That is the fastest route, and it leaves a record.
• If the provider does not respond, email support@merikagency.com with the order reference and we will close it.
• Cancel as early as you can. A provider who has already travelled to you may fairly ask for their transport cost, and that is between the two of you.
• Repeatedly booking and cancelling can get your account suspended.

If you are the provider

• You can decline an order that is pending or accepted, with a reason.
• You can close a stale order that is accepted or in progress — for example the customer is unreachable, the OTP never arrived, or you both agreed to call it off. You must pick a reason, and the customer is told what it was.
• Cancelling puts any tracked stock back and sends the customer a notification and an email.
• Cancellations lower your completion rate, which is public on your profile and feeds your ranking. Only accept work you can actually do.

Orders nobody closes

An order that is left "in progress" for more than 7 days is closed automatically by the system and marked complete, with a note on the order saying so. No OTP is used. If that happens and the job was never actually done, tell us — the record shows plainly that no code was ever entered.

3. If you already paid the provider

• Ask them in the order chat, in writing, for the money back. Say the amount and the date.
• Keep your M-Pesa message or bank slip. It is your proof, not ours — we have no record of a payment we never handled.
• If they refuse or go quiet, report it to us. We can warn, hide listings, or suspend the provider, and their profile stops earning them work.
• For a real dispute over money you can also go to the Small Claims Court, or to any consumer protection body with jurisdiction. We will supply the order record and chat transcript on a lawful request.

4. When the job went wrong

1. Talk to the provider first, in the order chat. Say plainly what is wrong and what you want — a redo, a part refund, or nothing further.
2. Then report it to us through the support chat on any page, or by email to support@merikagency.com. Include the order reference, what happened, and photos if you have them.
3. What we do: read the order and the chat, hear both sides, and take action on the account — a warning, hiding a listing, or suspension. We will also leave your honest review in place.
4. What we cannot do: take money off the provider, or pay you compensation. We were never holding the payment.

5. Refunds on plans and boosts

This is the money that genuinely passes through Merik Sokoni: provider subscriptions and one-off boosts, bought from the Pricing page. It is paid by card through Paystack, by M-Pesa through Safaricom Daraja, or in cryptocurrency through NOWPayments.

How the charge works

• You pay once, up front, for a fixed period. We do not keep your card and nothing renews itself, so there is no surprise second charge to reverse.
• When the period ends, the plan simply lapses. Pay again if you want to carry on.
• Listing on Sokoni is free, so nobody ever has to buy a plan to trade.

We always refund in full

• You were charged twice for the same thing.
• Money left your account but the plan or boost was never activated.
• A fault on our side stopped the thing you paid for from working, and we could not fix it.
• We closed your provider account for a reason that was not your fault.

Subscriptions

• Ask within 7 days of paying and we refund in full, as long as you have not used a paid benefit — no boost consumed, no listings created above the free limit, no homepage feature run.
• After 7 days, or once a paid benefit has been used, we do not refund the rest of the period. Your plan still runs to its end date, so nothing is lost.
• Downgrading does not create a refund. The plan you paid for runs out first.

Boosts

• A boost starts immediately and runs for the days shown on the package.
• Once a boost has started running it is not refundable, because the placement has already been delivered. A boost cannot be paused.
• If a boost was paid for but never went live, you get a full refund or a free replacement — your choice.
• A boost buys placement, not customers. Getting no orders is not a ground for a refund.

When we will not refund

• Your account was suspended or closed for breaking the Terms of Service.
• You changed your mind after using the benefit.
• You did not get the orders you hoped for.
• You paid an amount that did not match a real plan or package, and refused to give us the payment reference so we could trace it.

6. How a refund reaches you

• Refunds go back the way they came. We cannot pay a card refund out as M-Pesa cash.
• Crypto refunds are sent at the exchange rate on the day the refund is sent, not the day you paid, and the network fee is deducted. Coin prices move — you may receive a little more or a little less than you paid.
• We do not charge a handling fee on refunds.

7. How to ask for a refund

Email support@merikagency.com, or open the support chat from any page, and include:

• The email address on your Merik account
• What you paid for — plan name or boost package
• The date, the amount, and how you paid
• The payment reference: the Paystack reference, the M-Pesa confirmation code, or the crypto transaction hash
• Why you are asking

We reply within 2 working days to tell you whether it is approved. If we say no, we say why, and you can come back with more information.

Nothing on this page removes rights you have under Kenyan consumer law.