01At a glance

The short version. Each row is explained properly further down, and the detail always governs.

02Your rights in law

Whatever this policy says, South African law gives you rights that we cannot take away. Where our policy is more generous than the law — and mostly it is — our policy applies.

The 7-day cooling-off right (ECTA, section 44)

If you are a natural person and you bought from us electronically, you may cancel without giving a reason and without penalty within 7 days: for goods, within 7 days of receiving them; for services, within 7 days of the agreement being concluded. You pay only the direct cost of returning any goods, and we refund you within 30 days.

Section 42(2) of the same Act lists transactions this right does not apply to. Two of them matter here: services that started with your agreement before the 7 days were up, and computer software that you have unsealed or accessed. Because a Compass unlocks the moment you pay, opening and using it falls into those exceptions. That is exactly why we offer the 14-day guarantee in section 03 instead — it is simpler, longer and better for you.

Direct marketing (CPA, section 16)

If you bought as a result of direct marketing from us, you may cancel within 5 business days of the transaction or of delivery, without reason and without penalty, and we will refund you in full within 15 business days.

Advance bookings (CPA, section 17)

You may cancel an advance booking — a clinic place, a webinar seat, a booked service — at any time. We are entitled to keep a reasonable cancellation fee, which is what the sliding scales below are. The law says a fee is reasonable by reference to how long the booking was held, how much notice you gave, whether we can resell the place, and the general practice in the industry.

Section 17(5) says no cancellation fee may be charged if the booking could not be honoured because the person for whom it was made has died or been hospitalised. We honour that in full, and we do not ask for proof beyond a simple word from the family.

Quality of goods and services (CPA, sections 54 to 56)

You are entitled to services performed with reasonable skill, care and diligence, and to goods that work and are free of defects. If they are not, you may require us to put it right, and for goods you may return them within 6 months for a repair, a replacement or a refund — your choice, not ours.

03The Compass and digital products

This is deliberately better than the law requires. We would rather you tried it properly than bought it nervously.

How it works

• The 14 days run from the date of purchase shown on your order.
• Ask by email or WhatsApp (section 11). One line is enough.
• We refund the full amount you paid, to the payment method you used.
• Access to that Compass ends when the refund is processed. Your ratings and horse records stay saved on your account for 30 days in case you change your mind, and are then deleted.

The fair-use limits

• One refunded purchase per person. If you buy the same Compass again, the guarantee does not apply a second time.
• If you buy the Complete Collection after being refunded on a single compass, the guarantee applies to the Collection as normal.
• We may decline a refund where an account has copied, exported or redistributed the content, or shared its login — in other words, where the request is not honest. This is rare and we do not go looking for it.

After 14 days

After 14 days a digital purchase is not generally refundable, because you have full and lasting access to it and there is nothing to return. That does not affect your rights in section 02, or your right to a remedy if the product genuinely does not work — see section 10.

The Foundation Compass is included free with every discipline compass. Where a bundle is refunded, the whole bundle is refunded; we do not refund part of a bundle at the single-item price.

04Online courses

Courses marked coming soon or in production are not on sale, so there is nothing to refund. When a course is released, this applies:

• Within 14 days of purchase, and with less than 25% of the course completed — full refund, no reason needed.
• After 14 days, or once you have worked through more than a quarter of the material, we do not refund, because the value has largely been delivered.
• If a course is faulty, materially different from how it was described, or you cannot access it and we cannot fix that within a reasonable time, you get a full refund whenever that comes to light.
• If you bought a course as part of a bundle, we refund the bundle as a whole, or the difference in price if you keep part of it.

05Clinics and in-person events

Clinic places are limited, and once a place is held for you we usually turn other people away. The scale below is our reasonable cancellation fee under section 17 of the CPA — the more notice you give, the more we can resell the place, and the more you get back.

Transfers — always free

You may hand your place to somebody else at any time up to the start of the clinic, at no charge. Just tell us the new person’s name and email so that we can reissue the ticket and get their indemnity signed. This is usually the best option when something comes up late.

Your horse goes lame

It happens, and it is nobody’s fault. If your horse is unfit to work within 7 days of a clinic, tell us: we will move you to the next available clinic at no cost, or convert your Rider place to an Auditor place and refund the difference. If you would rather not come at all, the scale above applies.

Weather and conditions

Clinics run in most weather. We only postpone when the ground or the conditions make the work genuinely unsafe — and then section 09 applies. A wet day is not a cancellation; bring a jacket.

Travelling clinics

Travelling clinics depend on a minimum number of bookings to be worth the journey. If we do not reach it, we will tell you as early as we can and refund you in full — see section 09.

06Webinars

• More than 24 hours before the live call — full refund, no reason needed.
• Less than 24 hours before, or after the call has begun — no refund. The recording is sent to everyone who registered, so you still receive what you paid for even if you could not attend live.
• You could not join because of your own connection or device — no refund, but the recording still comes to you automatically.
• The call failed on our side, or you never received the join link despite telling us in good time — full refund, or a free place at the next webinar, whichever you prefer.
• You may transfer your place to somebody else before the call starts. Just tell us who.

07Farriery, training and yard visits

When we book a slot for you, we plan a route and turn other work away for it. Please give us as much notice as you can.

Work already done

Work that has been carried out is payable in full. If you are unhappy with it, do not simply refuse to pay — tell us within a reasonable time and we will come back and put it right at no charge. That is almost always the better outcome for the horse.

Shoes lost in the field

If a shoe is lost within 14 days of fitting and there is no obvious external cause — not mud, not a rider treading on it, not turnout with a rough companion — we will refit it free of charge. Beyond that, or where the cause is clearly external, a refit is charged at the normal rate. Losing a shoe is not by itself a defect.

Packages and blocks of sessions

Where you have paid for a block of training sessions, unused sessions may be refunded pro rata, less any discount that was given for buying the block, or carried over for 12 months.

08Horse transport

• Cancel more than 72 hours before collection — full refund of anything paid.
• Cancel within 72 hours — we may keep a deposit of up to 50% to cover the reserved slot and planned route.
• If the horse is not ready, refuses to load after a reasonable and calm attempt, or is unfit to travel on the day, the call-out and travel cost is payable.
• If we cannot travel because of a road closure, a vehicle breakdown, a disease movement restriction or another matter outside our control, section 09 applies and you are refunded in full.

09If we cancel or postpone

Sometimes we are the ones who cannot go ahead — illness or injury, unsafe conditions, too few bookings on a travelling clinic, a venue falling through, or something else genuinely outside our control.

When that happens, you choose:

• a place on the rescheduled date at no extra cost;
• a full credit toward anything else we sell, valid for 12 months; or
• a full refund, with no administration fee of any kind.

We will tell you as soon as we know, by email and by WhatsApp, and we will always say honestly why.

We cannot reimburse your travel, accommodation, transport or time. Please do not book a non-refundable flight or a hotel around one of our dates without your own travel insurance.

10If something is wrong

Separately from any cancellation right, you are entitled to a remedy if what you bought is faulty, does not work, or is materially different from how we described it.

• Digital products — if you cannot access what you paid for, or it does not do what the page said it does, tell us. We will fix it. If we cannot fix it in a reasonable time, you get a full refund whenever that happens, not only within 14 days.
• Services — if work was not done with reasonable skill and care, we will redo it or refund it, as section 54 of the CPA provides.
• Events — if a clinic or webinar is materially different from what was advertised, tell us on the day or immediately after, and we will refund you fairly.
• Duplicate or accidental purchases — refunded in full, straight away, no questions. Just tell us.
• An unauthorised payment on your account — contact us and your bank at once. We will investigate and refund promptly where the payment was not yours.

A Compass that shows a low score, or a horse that turns out to need more work than you hoped, is not a fault in the product. That is the product doing its job.

11How to ask for a refund

There is no form. Send us a message and include:

• your name and the email address on your order;
• your order number, or roughly when you bought and what it was;
• which clinic, webinar or booking it relates to, if that applies;
• a line about why — useful for us to improve, and never a condition of a refund inside the 14-day guarantee.

We acknowledge every request within 3 business days and give you a decision within 10 business days, usually much sooner.

12How and when you get paid

• Refunds go back by the same method you paid with. We cannot refund a card payment into a different account.
• We process approved refunds within 10 business days of approving them.
• Your bank or card issuer then takes its own time — usually 3 to 10 business days on top, sometimes longer for international cards. That part is out of our hands.
• Refunds are made in the currency you paid in, for the amount you paid. If exchange rates have moved, or your bank charged a conversion or foreign-transaction fee, the amount that lands in your account may differ slightly. We cannot cover a bank’s fees or rate movements.
• Where you have chosen a credit rather than a refund, we confirm it in writing and it is valid for 12 months against anything we sell.

13Chargebacks

If you think a charge is wrong, please talk to us before you go to your bank. We can almost always sort it out within a day or two, and a chargeback costs us a fee and takes weeks to resolve for you.

Where a chargeback is raised on a purchase that was validly made and where we have offered a refund under this policy, we will provide the payment provider with our records. Access to any digital product concerned may be suspended while the dispute is open.

14The book

Communicate With Your Horse is sold and fulfilled by Amazon, not by us. Returns and refunds for the paperback or the Kindle edition are handled under Amazon’s own returns policy, through your Amazon account. We cannot refund a book we did not sell you — but if there is a problem with the content itself, we would genuinely like to hear about it.

15Gifts and vouchers

• If you bought something as a gift, the refund goes back to you, the buyer, on the terms in this policy.
• The recipient may transfer a clinic or webinar place to somebody else, but cannot ask for a refund to their own account.
• Credits and vouchers are valid for 12 months, are not exchangeable for cash, and may be used against anything we sell.

16Complaints

If you are not happy with a decision we have made here, say so and we will look at it again ourselves — ask for it to go to Ray directly. We will give you a considered written answer within 15 business days.

If we still cannot agree, you may take the matter to a consumer court, to an accredited consumer goods and services ombud, or to the National Consumer Commission, under the Consumer Protection Act. Nothing in this policy takes away your right to do that, or to go to court.

17How to reach us

Horse Flow Academy is owned and operated by Rynhardt Erasmus and trades from Wilderness, Garden Route, Western Cape. Our full registered business details, and our physical address for the service of legal documents, are available on request — email us and we will send them to you.

This policy forms part of our Terms & Conditions. How we handle your information is set out in our Privacy Policy.

Helping People, Helping Horses.